Public information campaigns about nuclear attack or accident should restart as the threat to the UK has risen to Cold War levels, according to experts. Lessons should be learned from the response to the Covid-19 outbreak and put into preparedness for possible radioactive fallout, the authors of a new paper on the nuclear risk have said.
While war in Ukraine has heightened fears of a radioactive bomb being used, they also state that the world’s shift away from fossil fuels towards nuclear power has increased the chance of an accident somewhere in the world. In response to the paper, Defence Select Committee chair Tobias Ellwood MP said: “Perhaps, with the war in Ukraine and Russian troops attacking nuclear power stations and Putin threatening nuclear attack, it is timely to review our resilience to nuclear accidents and attacks.”
The paper – Rethinking our readiness for rapid response radiation monitoring in the face of nuclear incidents – has been written by Professor Tom B Scott of Bristol University, Nick Tomkinson, senior partner at Global Nuclear Security Partners, and Dr Arnab Basu, CEO of Kromek Group, which manufactures radiation detectors.
