Project:
Our project envisages a future for a slice of the West Cumbrian coastline - from nuclear submarine decommissioning to nuclear waste storage - and the associated industries, infrastructure and educational opportunities this will bring.
Location:
Our site encompasses a slice through the coastline of Western Cumbria, from mountain top in the foothills of the Lake District National Park, to what we have termed the Hinterlands, the forgotten space trapped between the mountains and the sea.
Conditions:
Economically this area can be split into the Lake District National Park, rich with tourist money, and the coastline, declining industry and a lack of opportunity - the Lakes earn almost £50 000 per person in income from its primary industry - tourism - whilst the Hinterlands earn just £13 000 per person from their primary industry - manufacturing.
It wasn't always this way, the Hinterlands region was once relatively richer and full of opportunity, with a strong fishing fleet, and the ports for exporting the regions mineral wealth - from stone in the interior to coal at the coast.
The area now lack any real identity except that of the nuclear industry.
Nuclear Industry:
Sellafield is the largest employer in the area, providing 10 000 jobs to local people. Built on a former TNT manufacturing site, it was used to create the UK's first nuclear weapons after WWII.
Shortly after, Windscale power station was built, providing the the worlds first commercial nuclear power facility. Since then the site has grown and now specialises in fuel reprocessing and interim storage of waste.
Sellafield has quite a poor safety record with hundreds of reported leaks, accidents and breakdowns. The most recent in 2005 saw the equivalent of a swimming pool worth of high level liquid waste leak, though most of it was contained on site.
Waste is a big issue. Sellafield contains the two most dangerously polluted buildings in Western Europe due to its accidents in the past. It accepts and stores high level waste from all over the UK.
Currently we have 12 000 tonnes of high level waste and 786 000 tonnes of intermediate level waste in interim storage, as well as 25 nuclear submarines built in Barrow waiting to be decommissioned sitting at docks around the country at a cost of £1 million per boat per year.
The West Cumbrian MRWS Partnership is currently consulting with the people of Copeland to see whether they would accept a repository. A decision is due on March 23rd. If they accept it they will see a large benefits payoff from the government. What will they say?
Site and Scheme:
The scheme proposed focuses on this area if, as seems likely, the community - the only true nuclear community in the UK - say YES to hosting a long term waste store.
The location for the scheme is on a strip from Sellafield on the coast to Seatallan, a mountain overlooking Wast Water in the Lake District. A distance of 4.5km and a rise of 690m.
Our proposal intends to focus on the surface tension created around the opening to the repository to be built in the mountainside of Seatallan, and the use of the minimum 3.5 million cubic metres of spoil from these excavations in creating an artificial shoreline in front of the Sellafield site. This will provide coastal defences for an unknown future for the nuclear site, a tourist hotspot and wildlife haven - but primarily provide a facility for the storage and dismantling of nuclear submarines.
In between there will be a processional route created by the railway for transport of waste material from the shore and the spoil form the mountain, reconnecting these two now disparate regions back into their original whole.
The proposal builds on the heritage of the area, providing opportunities for those with mining skills, railyards reopening and providing a re-connection to the sea for a traditionally outward looking maritime Hinterlands region.
Along the conjoining route, locations will be provided for associated industries, reviving the steel industry and providing jobs and investment across the region.
Phasing:
The masterplan is phased to take advantage of the time period over which the scheme will be operational - and the time the waste material will take to become benign.
1. Site Surveying
2. Infrastructure put in place
3. Repository excavation / Islands & Artificial Shoreline built
4. Facilities constructed
5. Waste moved to storage
6. Reclamation of sites by nature
Half-Life and Design Philosophy:
Constructing in time based elements so that each facility has a half-life (or series), taking on new lives over time.
Because the waste we are dealing with lasts for thousands of years, some elements of construction need to last for long periods of time.
Stewart Brand built a theory on layers of time, where each element of a building has a lifespan - some longer or shorter than others (represented in the building shape below) and should be designed accordingly.
We intend to design structures that are deconstructed, or shed layers over time.
Masterplan:
The middle of the lifespan... a nuclear graveyard for submarines - their demise bringing about a new phase of hope and optimism for the region.
On the coast, the new shoreline has enclosing pools allowing the storage and dismantling of the submarines, just up the coast from Barrow where their lifespan began. Radioactive waste is transferred through new and upgraded facilities on the Sellafield site, part way through decommissioning and in the process of being turned into a wildlife refuge.
The funerary procession through the now booming Hinterlands region will allow reflection on the significance that 'free' quick and easy power has for the future of the planet. As the train continues it highlights a new corridor reconnecting the Lake District to the Hinterlands, a region no longer seen along these old boundaries but accepted as one region, with goods and people flowing between them, sharing skills, prosperity, tourism and industry.
The repository site at Seatallan, chosen for its geological suitability, has a cultural significance as a prominent landmark in a Picturesque landscape.
It will be a 'monument' to the folly of the youthful urges of the nuclear industry, a message on the long term consequences of man's effect on the planet - reminding those holidaying in the Lakes that the 'natural' environment they have come to visit is nothing of the sort, it has been cultivated, tamed and changed by man for millenia.
After:
As time goes on, the monument for the living, for this culture and this time, the age of technological and scientific supremacy, a place of learning and cultural exchange, will begin to disappear under the geological activity of the earth, the passage of seasons and the effects of time, revealing a new 'monument' reflecting the age it takes for radioactive material to become benign. Eventually opening up the underground caverns at a point a thousand years from now when this finally occurs.
Our project envisages a future for a slice of the West Cumbrian coastline - from nuclear submarine decommissioning to nuclear waste storage - and the associated industries, infrastructure and educational opportunities this will bring.
Location:
Our site encompasses a slice through the coastline of Western Cumbria, from mountain top in the foothills of the Lake District National Park, to what we have termed the Hinterlands, the forgotten space trapped between the mountains and the sea.
Conditions:
Economically this area can be split into the Lake District National Park, rich with tourist money, and the coastline, declining industry and a lack of opportunity - the Lakes earn almost £50 000 per person in income from its primary industry - tourism - whilst the Hinterlands earn just £13 000 per person from their primary industry - manufacturing.
It wasn't always this way, the Hinterlands region was once relatively richer and full of opportunity, with a strong fishing fleet, and the ports for exporting the regions mineral wealth - from stone in the interior to coal at the coast.
The area now lack any real identity except that of the nuclear industry.
Nuclear Industry:
Sellafield is the largest employer in the area, providing 10 000 jobs to local people. Built on a former TNT manufacturing site, it was used to create the UK's first nuclear weapons after WWII.
Shortly after, Windscale power station was built, providing the the worlds first commercial nuclear power facility. Since then the site has grown and now specialises in fuel reprocessing and interim storage of waste.
Sellafield has quite a poor safety record with hundreds of reported leaks, accidents and breakdowns. The most recent in 2005 saw the equivalent of a swimming pool worth of high level liquid waste leak, though most of it was contained on site.
Waste is a big issue. Sellafield contains the two most dangerously polluted buildings in Western Europe due to its accidents in the past. It accepts and stores high level waste from all over the UK.
Currently we have 12 000 tonnes of high level waste and 786 000 tonnes of intermediate level waste in interim storage, as well as 25 nuclear submarines built in Barrow waiting to be decommissioned sitting at docks around the country at a cost of £1 million per boat per year.
Waste is a big issue and a permanent storage solution is necessary. The government is looking for a site in the UK and Cumbria is one of the most geologically suitable locations.
The West Cumbrian MRWS Partnership is currently consulting with the people of Copeland to see whether they would accept a repository. A decision is due on March 23rd. If they accept it they will see a large benefits payoff from the government. What will they say?
Site and Scheme:
The scheme proposed focuses on this area if, as seems likely, the community - the only true nuclear community in the UK - say YES to hosting a long term waste store.
The location for the scheme is on a strip from Sellafield on the coast to Seatallan, a mountain overlooking Wast Water in the Lake District. A distance of 4.5km and a rise of 690m.
Our proposal intends to focus on the surface tension created around the opening to the repository to be built in the mountainside of Seatallan, and the use of the minimum 3.5 million cubic metres of spoil from these excavations in creating an artificial shoreline in front of the Sellafield site. This will provide coastal defences for an unknown future for the nuclear site, a tourist hotspot and wildlife haven - but primarily provide a facility for the storage and dismantling of nuclear submarines.
In between there will be a processional route created by the railway for transport of waste material from the shore and the spoil form the mountain, reconnecting these two now disparate regions back into their original whole.
The proposal builds on the heritage of the area, providing opportunities for those with mining skills, railyards reopening and providing a re-connection to the sea for a traditionally outward looking maritime Hinterlands region.
Along the conjoining route, locations will be provided for associated industries, reviving the steel industry and providing jobs and investment across the region.
Phasing:
The masterplan is phased to take advantage of the time period over which the scheme will be operational - and the time the waste material will take to become benign.
1. Site Surveying
2. Infrastructure put in place
3. Repository excavation / Islands & Artificial Shoreline built
4. Facilities constructed
5. Waste moved to storage
6. Reclamation of sites by nature
Constructing in time based elements so that each facility has a half-life (or series), taking on new lives over time.
Because the waste we are dealing with lasts for thousands of years, some elements of construction need to last for long periods of time.
Stewart Brand built a theory on layers of time, where each element of a building has a lifespan - some longer or shorter than others (represented in the building shape below) and should be designed accordingly.
We intend to design structures that are deconstructed, or shed layers over time.
Masterplan:
The middle of the lifespan... a nuclear graveyard for submarines - their demise bringing about a new phase of hope and optimism for the region.
On the coast, the new shoreline has enclosing pools allowing the storage and dismantling of the submarines, just up the coast from Barrow where their lifespan began. Radioactive waste is transferred through new and upgraded facilities on the Sellafield site, part way through decommissioning and in the process of being turned into a wildlife refuge.
The funerary procession through the now booming Hinterlands region will allow reflection on the significance that 'free' quick and easy power has for the future of the planet. As the train continues it highlights a new corridor reconnecting the Lake District to the Hinterlands, a region no longer seen along these old boundaries but accepted as one region, with goods and people flowing between them, sharing skills, prosperity, tourism and industry.
The repository site at Seatallan, chosen for its geological suitability, has a cultural significance as a prominent landmark in a Picturesque landscape.
It will be a 'monument' to the folly of the youthful urges of the nuclear industry, a message on the long term consequences of man's effect on the planet - reminding those holidaying in the Lakes that the 'natural' environment they have come to visit is nothing of the sort, it has been cultivated, tamed and changed by man for millenia.
We were left with the question of monument and what that might mean...
In conclusion we want to creatively deal with the long term issue of nuclear waste and use it to connect West Cumbria - the Lake District and the Hinterlands.
We want to challenge the notion that the repository should not be located in the National Park. Considering that this waste could outlast this landscape, and it will be the longest lasting fossil of mankind, we believe it deserves more attention than being buried and forgotten.
After:
As time goes on, the monument for the living, for this culture and this time, the age of technological and scientific supremacy, a place of learning and cultural exchange, will begin to disappear under the geological activity of the earth, the passage of seasons and the effects of time, revealing a new 'monument' reflecting the age it takes for radioactive material to become benign. Eventually opening up the underground caverns at a point a thousand years from now when this finally occurs.
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