TNAG-1505-FCO40-2063-Guangdong-nuclear-power-station-project-at-Daya-Bay-safety-c-1986 — Page 160

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might still be more expensive than a PWR built to highest safety standards. But here is where China can show its responsibility

o its own and Hong Kong's population. The right thing to do now is to cancel the Daya Bay PWR and wait for a "Triga" or its equivalent to come on the market. At worst that might be a 10 year delay, at best possibly a 5 year delay. We ought to be able to wait that long.

Such an inherently safe reactor Hong Kong could live with if built in Daya Bay, 50 kilometers away. But for a PWR Daya Bay is just too close to Hong Kong and on the wrong side of Hong Kong. If it must be east of Hong Kong then it should be at least 120 miles away. Both Three Mile Island and ChernobyT showed that the postulated 5 kilometer radius for evacuation and 15 kilometer radius for precautions prescribed by the French for a PWR are insufficient. A catastrophic failure has effects thousands of miles away from the accident and evacuation in a 50 mile radius is almost a minimum requirement. Just how little we know about the effects of this sort of accident is shown by Chernobyl where the heroic firemen who went in right at the beginning to try and contain the fire were affected quite differently. Most of them are now dead, but one or two of them working side by side with those who had the most horrendous radiation injuries showed very little radiation effects and are hale and hearty. The doctors are completely puzzled why this should be, but the fact remains that the evacuation and other measures prescribed by the French Government at Gravelines are obviously insufficient.

In any case, an evacuation of Hong Kong is completely impractical. What does a worst case evacuation consist of? How many people have to be evacuated? To where and by what method? Planes, ships buses, cars? Do we commandeer all buses and taxis the way the French did when they took their troops to the Marne in 1914, and how many people would that actually move? We have 14,000 taxis, 5 to a taxi that is 70,000 people and 3,000 buses average 100 people to a bus (and that is generous) that is 370,000 people total we could move that way. Half a dozen large passenger ships to move another 50,000 maybe. 10 or 20 jumbo jets could move another 50,000. So if we are lucky in 24 to 36 hours we might be able to move 500,000 people. But where would we move them to? Who could accommodate and feed that many people with 24 hours notice!

At last count there were nearly 6 million in Hong Kong. What happens to the rest, that 5 million?? Do we build fallout shelters for all of them? And if we do, how much would our electricity cost then??

And even if we did not have to evacuate we would have a major water supply problem. More than half of our drinking water is supplied by rain water. In a Chernobyl type accident Hong Kong could be completely without drinking and washing water for some considerable time.

There is also the political aspect, and I am now not referring to our local politicians' ride on a populist bandwagon. Daya Bay is most unfortunately fast becoming a trial of strength between the Chinese Government and the population of Hong Kong. I am on record that I have always advocated confrontations between Hong Kong and China when this is necessary to make an important point about our liberties, but Daya Bay is the wrong issue and the wrong time to make into a trial of strength