Windscale: Britain's Biggest Nuclear Disaster (documentary)

[rylek]

This is a BBC documentary about Britain's first nuclear facility which was built to supply plutonium for Britain's first atomic bomb and the subsequent fire and escape of radiation that occurred there.

Here's a short overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale:_Britain%E2%80%99s_Biggest_Nuclear_Disaster

Windscale: Britain’s Biggest Nuclear Disaster is a 2007 BBC documentary which investigates the history of the first British nuclear facility and its role in the development of nuclear weapons. The documentary features interviews with key scientists and plant operators, such as Tom Tuohy, who was the deputy general manager of Windscale. The documentary suggests that the Windscale fire of 1957 - the first fire in any nuclear facility - was caused by the relaxation of safety measures, as a result of pressure from the British government to quickly produce bomb-making material. The 1957 fire brought Windscale to the brink of a major nuclear disaster.

There are two levels to this documentary.

The first one has to do with the geopolitical realities post World War 2 when Britain was a world power in decline and Britain's politicians were doing everything they could to keep up with American nuclear weapon's race in order to keep alive the 'special relationship' between Britain and the US.


The second level is the Windscale facility itself, originally designed to produce plutonium for atom bombs. The nuclear industry itself had one purpose: to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons and only later came electricity generation as a good excuse to justify the construction of new facilities.

After the US detonated its first hydrogen bomb, Windscale was tasked to produce tritium, a necessary component of the hydrogen bomb. Because the facility wasn't designed for this changes were made to the uranium tubes meant to achieve far higher temperature in the core to produce tritium.

Here's the kicker. Windscale was cooled by air not water to prevent the stack of graphite with uranium tubes from catching on fire. The air flowed into a chimney designed to vent the air. If there ever was a malfunction (like uranium cartridge malfunction) a huge filter on top of the chimney was meant to be captured the radiation. During construction it wasn't thought it would be necessary to install this filter but one of the scientists taking part in in the construction managed to get it installed. The accident itself involved a major fire that broke out in the stack as a result of the political demands to produce unreasonable quantities of plutonium and tritium far beyond the limits of the facility. And as always the operators were blamed for the whole incident. The documentary doesn't go into how much radiation was released but it seems that it was plenty.


It is very informative and the entire documentary is on youtube here:


Part 1. _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElotW9oKv1s

Part 2. _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEs1qLPFlEc

Part 3. _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1XApkJDOPU

Part 4. _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k7jGpISmUM

Part 5. _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW6FQj66lc4

Part 6. _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xULwqKOaAFs

Part 7. _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfu4hQkKexw

Part 8. _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIKuWW9FUwY

Part 9. _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Svbtz9rihU