Revenge of Nature in the remodelling of old nuke plant
TECHNOLOGY
TALK about rearranging the deck chairs. A year ago, four teams of architects, designers and engineers were invited by a BBC-sponsored television producer to come up with ideas for remodelling a decommissioned nuclear power plant in northern Wales, to be featured on a documentary series.
For one of the firms, the New York design group Site, the invitation launched an epic voyage through time and space that led from Stone Age Britain to the end of the world. It also led the group into the moral quandary that often confronts architects who try to take an active role in addressing social issues.
Trawsfynydd Nuclear Power Station is a landmark of the atomic age. When completed in 1959, the plant’s stark design, by the distinguished architect Sir Basil Spence, was regarded as a suitably awesome symbol of technological power.
Today, after decades of increasing public awareness ,of ecological issues, a visitor is more likely to see the 20-storey plant as a monstrous intruder in an Arcadian setting. But in the postwar years many were eager to regard the plant and its lush green surroundings as a natural fit.
Nuclear power, so the reasoning went, tapped into the innermost mysteries of nature. Why couldn’t it coexist harmoniously with forests and lakes?
Today, this kind of thinking is recognised as an integral part of Cold War propaganda. So, to an extent, was nuclear power itself: the peaceful use of atoms provided a respectable veneer for nuclear arms.
And while the Cold War is over, the bill for this particular item of propaganda is just beginning to come due. Society will be paying the installments for generations to come.
Trawsfynydd, which ceased operating last year, is the first major nuclear power plant in Britain to be decommissioned, the official term for taken out of service. It is being closely watched as a potential model for other nuclear facilities soon to be obsolete.
A model is desperately needed: more than 400 plants worldwide will go out of service within the next two decades. And though the word decommission evokes an image of crisp, bureaucratic efficiency, the process itself is far from neat. In fact, it’s a mess. Scientists, politicians and the nuclear industry have yet to devise sound strategies for cleaning up these sites and the lethal wastes they generate.
The design group Site was an intriguing choice for this project. The firm achieved initial renown in the 70s with its eye-catching Best Products suburban stores, which were designed to appear in a state of cataclysmic ruin.
In recent years, however, the firm has focused on "green architecture," hybrid architectural-landscape projects that honour the spirit, if not always the law, of environmentally responsible design.
Though Site’s work can be whimsical, it is grounded in thoughtful study of a design’s historic context. In Trawsfynydd, the context extends back to prehistory: part of the inspiration for the design came from the earthworks and stone monuments of neolithic Britain. Visitors to these ancient sites are overwhelmed by their uncanny power.
For James Wines, head of Site, they evoked a cosmic vision of a world to come: an Age of Ecology that will repair the ravages of the industrial era and link the present to the prehistoric past.
If Wines’s vision is hyperbolic, even naive, that may be partly because of the magnitude of the challenge his firm took on. Prehistory is a metaphor for the vast amount of time required to measure nuclear power’s enduring effects.
The theme of Site’s proposal was "the revenge of nature." The plant itself would be surrounded by immense trellises to support plantings that would eventually cover the entire structure. The team also proposed that a new International Energy Communications Centre be built in the town of Trawsfynydd.
Designed to resemble a Celtic cross surrounded by terraced, circular earth-works, the centre would provide facilities for research and public information on nuclear plant decommissions and new energy technologies. It would also offset the economic impact of the plant’s closing on the community.
Obviously, no one expects architects to solve the problem of nuclear waste disposal. Still, given Site’s environmental focus, it was inevitable that the team would try to grapple with this issue.
Accordingly, their plan included proposals for reducing the radiation hazard by using robotics and organic methods of decontamination, among other means. Beyond that, however, the team felt that part of its mission should be public education.
Indeed, since the project was created for television, the team thought that it could provide a valuable service by alerting the public to the magnitude of the problem caused by the shutdown of nuclear plants.
Kriz Kizak, the partner at Site responsible for researching the issue, came to believe that its most frightening aspect is not the threat of nuclear contamination. It is the failure of industry and Government to deal with it responsibly or to keep the public informed.
Industry spokesmen like to say, for instance, that 99 per cent of nuclear waste can be safely processed so it no longer provides a threat. This may sound reassuring until you grasp the fact that the remaining one per cent is the high-level stuff and thus the most hazardous, and the danger may persist for thousands of years.
Highly radioactive material can’t simply be buried without risk of meltdown or leakage created by seismic activity. It can’t be shot into space; a rocket might explode. It can’t be submerged in the sea; containers might leak. It may seem plausible to suppose that 250 or 2,000 years from now science will have solved the disposal problem.
But it’s just as plausible that the technology will be even less sophisticated than it is today, that money for research will not be available and that responsibility for the problem will be impossible to determine.
Site’s hope that the Trawsfynydd project might at least educate the public about this issue was dashed, however, when the team was shown the completed television programme on the project. — NYT
Source : The New Straits Times 09 April 1995
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