Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface: Once there was a landscape …
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: Talking nuclear
- Part I Nuclear landscapes
- Part II The nuclear people
- 4 The nuclear site: an inventory of fixtures
- 5 Learning the nuclear ropes
- 6 The nuclear everyday
- Conclusion: The ultimate subject: man
- Notes
- Index
6 - The nuclear everyday
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface: Once there was a landscape …
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: Talking nuclear
- Part I Nuclear landscapes
- Part II The nuclear people
- 4 The nuclear site: an inventory of fixtures
- 5 Learning the nuclear ropes
- 6 The nuclear everyday
- Conclusion: The ultimate subject: man
- Notes
- Index
Summary
Imagine the state of mind in which most of the technicians taken on at the la Hague plant found themselves:
I'm from Lorraine originally, started off in the iron and steel industry, but we soon realised that was on its last legs. Then in 1977 COGEMA put an ad in one of the eastern newspapers … I've worked my way up. Getting in here was like getting into NASA, you were headed for the realms of high-tech.
La Hague, COGEMA … meant nothing at all to me to begin with, what I mainly thought was that working in nuclear energy was like working at the sharp end of industry …
I didn't know much about nuclear energy, but for me it represented the future …
Things are different now. Young people entering the plant today know where they stand as regards the risks to which they will be exposed. Yet they all banish their anxiety with the same refrain: ‘There's less risk in working here than there is in taking your car out each morning.’
That leaves them with the avowed satisfaction of having a steady job and pride at having access to the latest equipment: ‘What's good here is that COGEMA has a huge budget and if there's any new machinery they buy it straight away. We're up at the forefront of technology. The engineers are always going on trips to look at and find out about new equipment.’
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Nuclear Peninsula , pp. 101 - 120Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993