The Anonymous Widower

The Car Park at the End of the World

Or should I say the end of Suffolk?

To many it would be an odd place to go for a walk.  But the beach is pleasantly part-sand, you have lot of birds, including kittiwakes nesting on the rigs, interesting plants and protection from the wind because of the dunes.  There is also a nice cafe and toilets.

Who would have expected it all, in the shadow of two nuclear power stations?

In the 1980s, I went over Sizewell A, which is the square station in the front.  It is a Magnox station, was built in the 1960s and will soon be completely decommisioned.  To plan their annual shutdown, they had one of the best planning systems, I have ever seen.  It was a long white perspex wall, where the critical path network was drawn and updated.  Different colours meant different things and through the months before the shutdown, all information was added in the correct place. Like everything I saw on that visit, it was all very professional.

I must relate a hunting story about Sizewell.  We were hunting from Knodishall Butchers Arms and were about a couple of kilometres from the sea with Sizewell A in the distance.  You might think that we were all against the station with its environmental implications.  But being on the whole practical people we realised that you have to get electricity from somewhere and that the plant was a large local employer in an area of the country, that had suffered large job losses with the closure of Garretts of Leiston.  But what really annoyed us, was the fact that the local farmer had grubbed out all of the trees and hedges. It was like riding in a lifeless desert.

I feel that we must build more nuclear power stations, but perhaps more importantly, we should be more economical with our energy use. Incidentally, as Sizewell is well connected to the electricity grid, from works we saw yesterday, it is being used as a ditribution point for the electricity generated by offshore wind farms. But I for one would not mind seeing Sizewell C and possibly D added to the Suffolk coast

June 25, 2010 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel, World | Birds, Hunting, Kittiwakes, Nuclear Power, Project Management, Sizewell, Sizewell A Nuclear Power Station, Sizewell B Nuclear Power Station, Suffolk