Fifty thousand levels Scottish blogger and Hugo-nominated SF writer Charlie Stross got a personal tour of the nuclear reactor complex at Torness. His long post describing the experience is a must-read.

Down below the reactor vessel, nine metres underground, there’s a big cork gasket. I mean big. I’m running out of adjectives for scale here, but it’s not every day you see a cork heatproof mat sized to sit underneath a forty-five metre tall nuclear reactor. Below that, there’s a concrete plinth and the other end of the cable bundles; the entire mess of reactors and turbines and steam pipes are suspended in a cats’ cradle of cables that are designed to damp out or absorb the forces of an earthquake or a major impact.

[05:20 PM]