Name John Large | Role Consultant | |
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Nerves on edge
John H. Large is an English consulting Chartered Engineer primarily known for his work in assessing and reporting upon nuclear safety and nuclear related accidents and incidents, work which has often featured in the media.
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Early career
From the mid-1960s until 1986 Large was an academic in Brunel University's School of Engineering, where he undertook research for the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority.
In 1986, he founded the London-based consulting engineers Large & Associates, which specialises in analysis of and reporting on failure of engineering systems, particularly in the nuclear field.
Major projects
He advised the Government of Gibraltar on nuclear safety aspects of the repairs being undertaken to the nuclear propulsion reactor on board HMS Tireless during 2000.
Large formed and led the nuclear risk assessment team involved in raising of the sunken and severely damaged Russian nuclear submarine Kursk in 2001 - the world's first successful recovery of a nuclear powered submarine.
He provided technical evidence in the Friends of the Earth legal action over the failure of the steam generators of the Southern California San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in 2013.
He reported upon the so-called 'carbon anomaly' that resulted in the temporary shutdown and resumption to power generation under restrictive conditions of 18 French nuclear power plants in 2016-17. Separately, he advised on related quality control issues in Japan.
Critical reviewer
At times, Large has been critical of the nuclear power industry, and has been commissioned by Greenpeace and other national and international NGOs to provide technical analysis on nuclear issues.
In 1985 Large was invited by House of Commons Environment Committee to submit evidence on environmental issues associated with radioactive waste at the UK's irradiated fuel reprocessing works at Sellafield. He provided the Committee with a technical note on the breakaway corrosion of Magnox nuclear fuel, demonstrating the then hitherto undisclosed highly unstable pyrophoric reaction. Resulting from this disclosure, he provided evidence on the secrecy practised by the UK nuclear industry.
In 2003 Large submitted a paper for publication to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers about the danger of a terrorist attack on UK nuclear installations. The paper was passed to the UK security services and then suppressed on the advice of the UK government, although the work was subsequently published overseas in revised form.
In November 2014, following a spate of overflights of French nuclear power plants by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), Large provided evidence to the French Parliament (in the open session of l'Office Parlementaire d'Evaluation des Choix Scientifiques et Technologies, l'OPECST) relating to the vulnerabilities of plants to drone intrusion. The Large & Associates' report on the drone activity, commissioned by Greenpeace France, remains confidential but aroused considerable media speculation.