Windscale 1957: Anatomy of a Nuclear Accident

261 Pages·1995·24.21 MB·English

by  Lorna Arnold (auth.)

WINDSCALE 1957
Also by Lorna Arnold
A VERY SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP: British Atomic Weapon Trials
in Australia
Windscale 1957
Anatomy of a Nuclear Accident
Lorna Arnold
Foreword by Sir Alan Cottrell, FRS
Second Edition
MACMILLAN
©The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority 1992, 1995
Foreword© Sir Alan Cottrell 1992
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 2nd edition 1995 978-0-333-65036-3
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of
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Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this
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claims for damages.
First edition 1992
Second edition 1995
Published by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
ISBN 978-0-333-48253-7 ISBN 978-1-349-24008-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-24008-1
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 96 95
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
Contents
List of Appendices viii
Foreword by Sir Alan Cottrell, FRS ix
Note on Documentation X
List of Abbreviations xi
Glossary xiv
Introduction to the Second Edition XX
Introduction xxi
Figures xxiv
1 Britain's Atomic Bomb 1
2 Windscale's Origins 8
Design and construction 11
3 After Hurricane 19
A novel kind of organisation 19
The atomic bomb programme 20
The civil power programme 21
Future systems 24
The H-bomb programme 25
Commitments and resources 26
Windscale after Hurricane 29
The Windscale men 39
4 The Ninth Anneal 42
Monday, 7 October 44
Tuesday, 8 October 45
Wednesday, 9 October 47
Thursday, 10 October 47
Friday, 11 October 50
Saturday, 12 October 52
Environmental contamination 53
5 Damage Assessment and Damage Control 60
Consultations 60
Preliminary inquiries 64
Action: radiological surveys 71
v
Vl Contents
Action: cleaning up 73
The production programme: assessing the impact 75
6 The Penney Inquiry and the First White
Paper 77
The Penney report 77
'What do we say?' 85
A matter of collective responsibility 86
Health and safety 87
Graphite 89
Further inquiries 92
The White Paper (Cmnd 302) 93
Telling the world 94
7 Three More White Papers 98
The first Fleck report, on the organisation of
certain parts of the UKAEA (Cmnd 338) 98
The second Fleck report, on the organisation
for control of health and safety in the
UKAEA (Cmnd 342) 104
The third Fleck report, on technical
evaluation (Cmnd 471) 110
The IPCS disagrees 117
Pile No.2 121
8 Causes: An Accident Waiting to Happen 124
Some sceptics 127
Reinterpreting the evidence 128
Conclusions 133
9 Appraisals and Reappraisals 136
First thoughts, 1957 137
Report to the Geneva Conference, 1958 138
Further thoughts from the MRC, 1959/60 139
Reassessments, 1963-76 143
After Three Mile Island, 197~88 144
Windscale under scrutiny 147
The worst nuclear accident in the world,
1986 151
Final words on the health impact? 152
10 Postscript 154
The end of an era 154
The Windscale piles: present and future 159
Contents
Vll
Appendices 161
Note on Sources 205
Notes and Riferences 208
Bibliography 225
Index 231
List of Appendices
I Chronology of events, October
195 7-0ctober 1958 161
II Responsibilities and organisation of the IG 164
III Instruction of 14 November 1955 on Wigner
releases 167
IV Summary of Wigner releases in Windscale
piles, 1953-5 7 168
v
Note on uranium fuel cartridges in the
Windscale piles 169
VI Note on other cartridges in the Windscale
piles 172
VII Emergency site procedure at Windscale 175
VIII Calculations of emergency levels for
iodine-131 178
IX Estimates of fission product and other
radioactive releases resulting from the
1957 fire in Windscale Pile No.1 184
X Estimates of total radiological impact of the
radioactive releases resulting from the
1957 fire in Windsca1e Pile No.1 187
XI Report of Penney Inquiry 189
Vlll
Foreword
Lest we forget is the historian's motivator and justification; to
capture the facts and record them coherently and fairly before
they escape the grasp of fading memories and perishable docu
ments, or are supplanted by myth and wishful fiction. In the
historian's traditional theatres - politics, military struggle,
national leadership, imperialism, social evolution, ecclesiastical
power - there is no shortage of researchers, interpreters, presenters
and commentators. But the twentieth century has seen the rise of
other great human activities, notably in science and technology,
and the historians of these are still rare; a handful of pioneers
struggling to ensure that these new branches of history do not
suffer such nebulous and fabulous beginnings as the classical
ones. That is why we must be grateful to Lorna Arnold and her
colleagues, pre-eminently Margaret Gowing, who are endeav
ouring to capture our fading technological history.
The Windscale accident of 1957 is the equivalent of a wartime
battle. All the same basic elements are there: misjudgements,
professional rivalries, brilliant improvisation, desperate de
cisions and heroic actions, all wrapped in a cloud of uncertainty
as dense as any fog of war. As a beautiful account of epic
endeavour, exposing human character in all its complexity as
realistically as in any battle, Lorna Arnold's story grips the
reader by its sheer fascination; a true adventure, expertly told by
a professional historian.
SIR ALAN COTTRELL
ix