Unit 25 recap

I realise that I have only blogged twice about my Unit 25 project these past few months. That’s probably because not much photography has been undertaken, beyond a preliminary shoot.

I have spent quite a bit of time following the news about associated stories. To date, there have been two reports by government agencies, both sceptical (from different perspectives) about the usefulness of Nuclear Power. Unsurprisingly, Mr Blair has his own ideas, so it will be interesting to see what happens in July when the Committee for Radioactive Waste Management is due to report.

In the meantime, the decision about how to dispose of existing waste has yet to be arrived at, and my exhibition will be complete before then.

I am interested in ideas surrounding the use of landscape, and its ownership: since most of the proposed storage sites were MOD, one would envisage that the government has sole say in whether or not waste is stored there. At the moment, a lot of waste is stored on the coast at places like Sellafield, where power stations also reside. Yet long term storage is not an option here, due to coastal erosion making these sites unviable. I have considered that issues of geology and coastal erosion are handy metaphors, since a lot of the waste loses its radioactivity over thousands of years, it’s perhaps better measured on this time scale.

The whole concept of Nuclear Power demonstrates the crass, short-term concerns of capitalist economics. Power stations have a shelf-life of 60 years, yet the waste produced is dangerous for aeons. And of course, the real issue that’s being missed is why we need to use so much energy in the first place – and how much is already being wasted.

So how do I get this across? Good question. I have spent time identifying sites to visit – and only visiting those sites would yield photographs. I think I have moved on from the idea of ‘chocolate box’ images, and the concept will be more important than the actual photos themselves.

With this in mind, I visited a site this week. I will post a report as soon as it is written.