Windscale
It’s the 50 year anniversary of the disastrous fire at the Windscale nuclear reactor, and there was an excellent documentary on BBC Two on Monday. I knew the basic story of the fire, but not the details, which — it has to be said — were fairly terrifying. It could easily have turned into a far more serious situation, but for the actions of staff at the site.
As they said in the documentary, because it was Britain’s first nuclear reactor, they had no idea what to do when the fire broke out. The deputy general manager, Tom Tuohy, described climbing up on top of the pile, opening an inspection hatch and seeing a raging inferno inside the graphite core. I can’t remember his exact words in the documentary, but he grinned and said something like, “I remember thinking, Blimey! What a mess.” Classic British understatement strikes again… They took the brave step of running water through the pile, without knowing at the time whether it would put the fire out or cause a massive explosion. In the end, it did neither; the fire still burned because of the air blown through the pile which was also supposed to cool the uranium cartridges. Again, they had another terrible decision to make about whether to leave the fans running and risk spreading and feeding the fire, or turn them off and risk further overheating. They chose to turn the fans off, and luckily the fire went out.
The whole situation seemed to have been exacerbated by corners which were cut in the Government’s rush to manufacture enough material to produce a H-bomb and convince the Americans that Britain was a genuine nuclear power, worthy of sharing their nuclear secrets. Parts of the aluminium cooling casings surrounding each uranium rod were trimmed to try to increase the output of plutonium, which probably contributed to the overheating problem. The safety measures also seemed laughable — the workers were poking the cartridges out with old scaffolding poles at one point (reminiscent of something Homer Simpson would try to pull off), and they were only protected by flimsy looking plastic suits and rudimentary breathing apparatus. Macmillan’s report covered up the poor decisions and pressure imposed by the Government, and blamed the fire on an “error of judgement”, which was grossly unfair on all those who risked their lives to try to get the fire under control.
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Such incidents make you realize that nuclear power is more expensive than it appears at first blush. Working out the true price, in the face of accidents and contamination, is very tricky indeed.
by Milan @ 10/10/2007 9:13 pm • Permalink •
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Milan - costings are difficult indeed- we don't acknowledge the cost in terms of life that coal brings - a safe fuel that costs 3000 lives a year to mine it.
by birchscrub @ 11/10/2007 6:53 pm • Permalink •
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It struck me that many of the problems were caused by ignoring the engineers warnings and cutting corners, in a desperate political bid to demonstrate that Britain can punch above its weight in military terms, which clearly it can't, at best we end up hanging anto the Americans coat tails.
This attitude still seems to be with us still, witness the Iraq invasion. I wish we could settle down to being a moderately prosperous, middle ranking country, which while still able to contribute positively in world affairs does not have the me too attitude of a small boy keeping up with the bigger boys.
by Keith @ 13/10/2007 10:39 am • Permalink •
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Keith,
You can settle for second rate if you want to, I have no intention of doing so. Britain has punched above its weight for 100s of years because it has ambition,; if we lose that, we won't be second rate, we will fall off the bottom of the scale. Britain is the most inventive country the world has ever known - Ask the Japanese Industry Ministry, they came up with that finding. It is ambition which drives the world forward, mistakes may happen along the way, they always did, they always will. Thousands of miners a year digging coal, by comparison, that Nuclear is the safer option is a no-brainer; its problem is what lunatics on the fringes of society want to do with its by-products.
by Jonathan Briggs @ 13/10/2007 4:36 pm • Permalink •
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All: There are two issues here: one is that that Windscale was originally built to provide raw materials for nuclear weapons -- the power generation was a side effect that they admitted was mainly there to placate the public. The costs of safety (both of the plant and of the waste produced) are the same in both cases, but the benefits are rather different. I think that nuclear bombs are proof of the kind of stupid mess that humans can get themselves into by being too clever by half, but nuclear power is actually quite green in some ways. But (and it's a big but), leaving a legacy of huge quantities of dangerous waste for many generations to come has always seemed irresponsible to me.
As for whether Britain is 'second rate' or not, I'm not sure that I care too much. Some races (like the nuclear arms race) are not worth winning, but others are.
by bsag @ 13/10/2007 7:17 pm • Permalink •
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Bsag - it is very difficult to uninvent something so we're pretty much stuck with nuclear weapons - isn't the issue more what stupid idea we'll come up with next?
And as for having lots of radioactive waste - bluntly - is it better to pollute one small part of the planet for a long time, or mess it all up as we have done with fossil fuels? Nuclear waste won't melt the Greenland Ice shelf.
by birchscrub @ 13/10/2007 9:30 pm • Permalink •
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