From Clive Semmens
In his letter (25 January, p 31), Phillip Graham writes: “Local aboriginal tribes should be the only ones who decide whether to allow and profit from a nuclear waste repository. The site of the first nuclear test on the Australian mainland in South Australia would be a good place for consultations and geological studies.” It is important to remember that the quantity of radioactive fission products generated in a nuclear explosion is less than 1 per cent of what is present in a reactor at any moment, and that it is a very much smaller fraction still of what a reactor produces over its lifetime. Bear in mind also, that many reactors would contribute their waste to a dump.
I hope the local aboriginal tribes know all that.
Ely, Cambridgeshire, UK
