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Speech by Mr. W.M. Sulke, OBE, JP to Rotary Club of Hong Kong on Tuesday, 19th August, 1986
Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Daya Bay:
The Nuclear Jigsaw and its Solution
For a great many people in the world we now have a new calendar: BC (Before Chernobyl) and AC (After Chernobyl), and it is now four months AC. Although I was asked to comment many times I deliberately waited until now before saying anything on the subject of Daya Bay so that, even though four months is a relatively short period, some perspective could be gained.
Before going any further, I want to emphasize that I am a layman but a layman who, because of my well known interest in all types of pollution, has for the last ten years studied the problems nuclear power and given them a lot of thought.
To quote my fellow poet Byron:
"Of all the horrid hideous notes of woe
Sadder than owlsongs or the midnight blast Is that portentious phrase, 'I told you so'.
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Its not normally in my nature to say it but I do have every right to stand here and tell you "I told you so",
I told you so", and am saying it to give credibility to the rest of what I am going to say to you today.
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Three years ago when I was Chairman of the Special Committee on Air Pollution which coincidentally (?) was soon after abolished, I pushed Government very hard to allow that Committee and EPCOM to investigate the plans for building a nuclear power station at Daya Bay. I also warned at the time that the greatest danger for Hong Kong would be the fact that in a Communist political system management has a strong motive to hide any mistakes they make and that therefore Hong Kong would not be informed of any possible accident until it was too late so that it was absolutely essential we put in a first class monitoring system and that baseline monitoring should start then and there (to the best of my knowledge it hasn't started yet!). I also, at my expense, made several trips overseas to investigate nuclear power problems elsewhere and, in fact, was the first one to bring back information regarding evacuation procedures, notification of foreign countries etc. from the largest collection of Pressurised Water Reactors (PWR's) in the world in Northern France at Gravelines, which is only 50 km from Dover, 15 km from Calais, 75 km from Lille, and 15 km from Dunkirk, all large population centres and 40 km from the Belgian border. I passed all this information to the then Secretary of Economic Services who, in Hong Kong Governmental logic, was in charge then and now of all things concerning nuclear power, with the Secretary of Health and Welfare barely getting a look-in. And with my handing this over I advocated a study of the feasibility of a full scale evacuation plan for Hong Kong's population. Whether my advice on this was ever taken I do not know.
I am on record, both in public and with the Hong Kong Government in Minutes of EPCOM and of the Special Air Pollution Committee I used to chair, of saying that we and China need nuclear power but that this Daya Bay power station will be sited wrongly, it should be west of Hong Kong and not east, that it is too close to Hong Kong, that the greatest problem we are going to have will be caused by the way Communist management thinks, i.e.