Letters: Spring balance
I would like to congratulate you on your Inside Science ‘Water from
the ground’ (16 February). As a farmer, this has at last enabled me to understand
why a spring line should be near the top of the hill and how the water table,
and hence the flow of ditches, varies depending onthe season.
More importantly, the report demonstrates how it usually takes many
years for water to find its way down through the soil and the unsaturated
zone to the saturated zone of an aquifer. Farmers have been applying increasing
quantities of fertiliser which is only now beginning to result in nitrate
pollution of the water from aquifers. Evidently, we are sitting on a time
bomb. One would have anticipated that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries
and Food had sufficient technical knowledge to foresee the resulting pollution
problems, and advise against using high input, high profit systems.
A. J. Obrist Milton Keynes Buckinghamshire
Letters: Hanging together
Sloppy thinking is no doubt at least as common among arts graduates
as among science graduates; I only wish Peter Holway would turn his attention
to sloppy thinking as such, rather than indulging in it himself (‘Hang first,
ask questions later’, Forum, 23 February).
He claims that arts graduates are not interested in evidence and ‘proves’
this by telling an anecdote of a failed attempt to teach basic science method
to some sixth-formers. He then jumps to recent debates on capital punishment
in the House of Commons, insinuating that Douglas Hurd and Kenneth Baker
produced duff arguments on deterrence because they are arts graduates, rather
than (as I had naively supposed) because they knew they were about to lose
the vote and so were saying what their supporters wanted to hear, rather
than making an argument likely to convince.
Are science graduates significantly less pro-hanging than arts graduates?
I would also be interested to hear why Holway thinks capital punishment
was abolished 25 years ago and has been consistently rejected since, if
the only argument is over deterrence, and our arts-dominated politicians
are too stupid to understand the figures.
Steve Hedley University of Cambridge
Letters: Timely fun
After reading Ariadne’s reference (2 March) to the word ‘timeously’
in a letter from the Royal Bank of Scotland, I looked it up to find it described
as a Scottish word. Perhaps the bank is having a bit of harmless fun at
the expense of us Sassenachs.
Michael Lewis Warlingham, Surrey
Letters: Clean cars
A competition in search of environmentally sound automobile designs,
held recently in Australia, was not the first of its kind (Technology, 9
February). That honour goes to the Clean Air Car Race, sponsored by MIT
and Caltech during August 1970. About 20 vehicles were tested for emissions
and efficiency over a course stretching from Cambridge, Massachusetts to
Pasadena, California. Progress was covered each night by Walter Cronkite,
on the CBS evening news.
There were electric cars, ‘hybrid-electrics’, a steamer, and one shrill
vehicle with a Lear Jet engine (it parked outside my hotel window). The
winners used a fuel which today sounds mundane-unleaded petrol. At the time
it was exotic, and publicity from the race is credited by some for the big
push for lead-free petrol, which began the following year.
David Brin Paris France
Letters: Nuclear reality
William Bown seems to be amazed that I should be confident about the
future of nuclear power and claims that such confidence is at odds with
reality. I feel that it is Bown who is at odds with reality (‘A realist
at odds with reality’, Forum, 23 February).
He claims that in five years ‘almost no one has bought the idea’ that
continued and greater use of nuclear power might help to contain the greenhouse
effect. The summit of the largest industrial countries in Paris (1989) stated:
‘We recognise that nuclear power also plays an important role in limiting
the output of greenhouse gases.’ A similar statement was made at the Houston
summit last year. Is this ‘almost no one’?
Bown says that in the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change in the summer of 1989 the value of nuclear power to restrain the
emission of carbon dioxide ‘appears almost as an afterthought’. It is true
that the panel-headed by an antinuclear scientist-has so far not said a
positive word about nuclear power. But it is equally true that all the most
successful reduction scenarios presented to the IPCC’s subgroup for energy
and industry contain a major nuclear component.
He claims that ‘prospects for a new non-proliferation treaty, needed
by the time the current one runs out in 1995, are dim’ because the 1990
review conference ended without an agreed declaration. Any judgment about
the diplomatic situation in 1995 is uncertain. In my view there is room
for some optimism. At present we are seeing Argentina, Brazil and South
Africa moving to verified non-proliferation pledges and there is talk about
a zone free of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
Bown claims that ‘Blix’s inspectors visited Iraq and gave it a clean
bill of health. The US then revealed its true regard for the (International
Atomic Energy Agency) by repeating its claim that Iraq was on the verge
of making a nuclear bomb.’ The reality is more complicated that Bown has
discovered. The agency has not given Iraq ‘a clean bill of health’. Its
inspectors verified in November 1990 that there had been no change in the
status of the nuclear material under safeguards in Iraq since the previous
inspection in April 1990, at which time it was concluded that all such nuclear
material was accounted for. This finding has not been questioned by the
US or any other government.
Finally, Bown complains that I think it is ‘too early’ to say whether
Eastern Europe’s nuclear power ‘can be saved’. I think the debate might
be more enlightened once major international technical inquiries which are
currently underway into the safety of some Eastern European reactors are
on the table.
Hans Blix, Director General International Atomic Energy Agency Vienna,
Austria
Letters: Finger trouble
Perhaps Sidney Perkowitz has forgotten to mention a certain type found
in the laboratory, or is he singularly lucky in never having met one? I
refer to the variety known as Finger Trouble (‘The march of the science
platoon’, Forum, 9 February).
This type may be encountered at any level from postgraduate upwards.
When cornered, they are instantly recognisable by a typical cry of ‘Oh but
I only ..’ (as in ‘Oh but I only pressed this button here/twiddled this
knob just a wee bit/let just a tiny bit of air in/went for tea for two minutes’
and so on).
They are often of otherwise fairly high intelligence, but appear to
lack a certain practicality. It must be admitted that the phenomenon is
not well understood, nor is it susceptible to any known remedy (except total
quarantine). Any suggestions as to its handling would be most welcome.
I. Hanson University of Liverpool
Letters: Exposed elements
I feel that three points should be made about your article ‘Fire danger
at North Wales nuclear store’ (This Week, 2 March). Firstly, while a very
few Magnox fuel elements have corroded to the extent that uranium has been
exposed, it is highly unlikely that uranium hydride has formed in an air
atmosphere. Surveillance confirms that the affected elements are all dry,
stable and safe. The fire risk is therefore minimal; even if it occurred,
the design of the store-which is kept at lower than atmospheric pressure
with a full filter system-ensures that there would be no external risk.
Second, the problem was always localised. Only 46 elements out of a
total of 21 437 are affected, and of these, less than a third have exposed
uranium. Monitored radioactivity levels remain very low.
And finally, the design of the Wylfa store is not the base for any possible
future dry store for fuel from advanced gas-cooled and pressurised water
reactors. Apart from the fact that these later reactors do not have corrosion-prone
cladding (it’s stainless steel or zirconium), the designs we are looking
at incorporate sealed containers for the fuel elements.
We are now developing a method of safely removing the affected fuel
for reprocessing. It will, of course, be thoroughly vetted by the Nuclear
Installations Inspectorate.
Doug McRoberts Nuclear Electric plc Gloucester
Letters: Exposed elements
The article on the danger of a fire at the Wylfa nuclear store in North
Wales suggested erroneously that Friends of the Earth would be embarrassed
by Nuclear Electric’s inability to manage spent radioactive waste. The air
stores, where the damaged fuel currently is placed, were intended as temporary
‘buffer’ stores to accommodate fluctuations in station operation.
In 1985 we objected to a planning application for continued use of one
of the air stores as the operators, the CEGB, were seeking very much longer-term
storage of high level and heat emitting irradiated fuel than was originally
intended. In that objection, we identified the danger of spontaneous ignition
in air of damaged uranium fuel.
We do not advocate ‘indefinite dry storage of spent fuel’ as the article
points out, but that the waste should be stored in facilities which are
engineered to allow for full monitoring and recovery should that be necessary.
For the foreseeable future, dry stores are the only systems capable of ensuring
that these two principles are met.
Michael Harper Friends of the Earth London
Letters: Research ethics
Could I add one significant point to your helpful account of the Nuffield
Foundation’s plans for a Council on Bioethics? I omitted doctors from my
list of professions that were consulted. The foundation’s consultations
did, of course, include the major medical bodies; for example, the Conference
of the Medical Royal Colleges invited the chairman of the Nuffield Trustees
to give a presentation. We also received constructive and critical comments
on the proposals from the British Medical Association, the General Medical
Council and from the Medical Research Council. Our present proposals have
been revised in the light of these and other comments.
David Shapiro Nuffield Foundation London
Letters: Energy response
It is indeed bizarre that at a time of unprecedented concern over climate
change, energy efficiency should be regarded with such indifference (‘The
first steps out of the greenhouse’, 16 February).
You say that manufacturers are not to blame for the absence of energy-efficient
products in daily use. This is correct: the role of manufacturers is to
supply the market with what it demands, not to create ‘green’ products that
will not sell. So how can demand for less energy-intensive goods be stimulated?
Clearly, academic arguments about tonnes of carbon dioxide saved are not
enough to sway most consumers, and more direct incentives are needed.
The real responsibility lies with governments. By manipulating markets
they can promote low-energy products, be they cars, light bulbs or fridges.
Environmental taxes to penalise energy wasters are not as unpleasant as
they sound, because they can be made ‘revenue-neutral’. This principle is
embodied in California’s proposed DRIVE+ programme, in which buyers of gas-guzzling
cars would pay a surcharge which would provide rebates for buyers of more
economical machines.
A recent survey showed that 47 per cent of British drivers would be
prepared to buy a smaller car in the interests of curbing emissions of carbon
dioxide. And who would dispute the virtues of low-energy light bulbs? Governments
have a responsibility to turn latent enthusiasm into real action, and offer
sizeable incentives to those willing to use less.
Peter Hughes Open University Milton Keynes Buckinghamshire
Letters: Monkey proof
I was intrigued by Arturo Sangalli’s article ‘The burden of proof is
on the computer’ (23 February). I had always been tickled by the monkeys
in Kipling’s Jungle Book, who claimed, ‘We all say so, so it must be true’.
Now it looks as though, given they were mathematicians, they were probably
right.
Keir Moilliet Fareham Hampshire
Letters: Research ethics
All research, whether medical or scientific, ought to be subject to
ethical scrutiny, and I am sure that our first national Council on Bioethics
would wish to consider wider issues than those usually examined by such
committees (This Week, 2 March).
When we think of ethics in biology and medicine, we think usually of
in vitro fertilisation and problems in ‘birth research’, of difficulties
that arise when we deny expensive therapy to elderly victims of disease.
But ethical consideration is worthwhile before and during any biomedical
research, as resources are always limited in some way and the research we
do must be useful, and be properly executed and analysed.
How do we decide which clinical problem is worthy of attention? Are
all researchers aware of the difficulties of study design and bias? Is it
ethical to continue to deny new treatment to patients solely to form a control
group in an experiment?
These questions-together with the traditional ones of life and death-need
to be considered by the new council.
George Kernohan Queen’s University of Belfast