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Windscale 1957. Anatomy of a Nuclear Accident, 3rd edn

This article has been downloaded from IOPscience. Please scroll down to see the full text article. 2007 J. Radiol. Prot. 27 513 (http://iopscience.iop.org/0952-4746/27/4/B01) View the table of contents for this issue, or go to the journal homepage for more

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IOP PUBLISHING J. Radiol. Prot. 27 (2007) 513514

JOURNAL OF RADIOLOGICAL PROTECTION doi:10.1088/0952-4746/27/4/B01

Book reviews
Windscale 1957. Anatomy of a Nuclear Accident, 3rd edn Lorna Arnold Palgrave Macmillan (2007) ISBN: 978 0 230 57317 8, 264pp, 19.99 (pbk) The third edition of Lorna Arnolds comprehensive account of the nuclear reactor re at Windscale Works, Sellaeld, on 1011 October 1957 has been published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the accident, which remains the largest unintentional release of radioactive material into the environment that has occurred in the UK (or, indeed, the West). Clearly, it is of importance to understand the nature of the accident itself, why it happened, and its consequences, and in her book Lorna Arnold achieves these objectives admirably. Not only are the technical details of the accident fully described, but the all important political context is sharply observed. We can appreciate from this book that the accident was as much to do with the pressure to rapidly produce materials on an industrial scale for an independent British nuclear weapons programme as with design and operational faults. This political pressureheavily driven by the need to re-establish technical cooperation with the USA, as well as to produce the weapons themselveswas not counterbalanced by a strong and independent health and safety regulatory body. A consequence was the construction and operation of two nuclear reactors that, if permitted to operate in the rst place, continued in service for too long. Lorna Arnoldnow 91 years of age, but still bright as a button as her recent appearances on national television and radio demonstratedwas the ofcial historian of the UK Atomic Energy Authority from the 1960s, and she knows her subject intimately. She has had access to classied les in the Harwell and Aldermaston archives and has been able to weave a tapestry across open and closed documents for her books, of which there are now three, that very few others, if anyone, would be capable of doing. As a consequence, her book on the Windscale accident is a masterful treatise based on solid documentary evidence, fully referenced when the les are open, but also guided by what is still hidden in closed les (although there are now few of these of direct relevance to the re). This book is a standard reference work
0952-4746/07/040513+02$30.00

that is very difcult to fault, even in the detail, and I only wish I was close to being able to summon the concentrated effort that the writing of this book has clearly demanded. Windscale 1957 describes how the British nuclear weapons programme came into being in the mid- and late-1940s, and how the plutonium production factory at Windscale Works (as the site of the wartime Sellaeld ordnance factory was renamed in 1947) was a vital component in this programme. Plutonium was initially produced (from 1950/51) in two nuclear reactors called the Windscale Piles. Each Pile consisted of uranium metal, aluminium-clad elements positioned in horizontal channels running through a large block of graphite, and this core was cooled by blowing a large volume of air through these channels and out of a 120 m tall chimneyelectricity generation played no part in the operation of these particular reactors. (About ten years ago I accompanied Lorna Arnold in a small external lift to the top of Pile No. 1 chimneyquite an expedition for a lady in her early eighties!) The Piles proved difcult to operate from the beginning, a major, unanticipated, problem being Wigner energy stored in the graphite that had to be released in what were essentially ad hoc annealing operations to prevent sudden uncontrolled energy releases and possible res. It was the ninth anneal in Pile No. 1 that led to the re and the permanent closure of the two reactors. In essence, instrumentation that was inadequate for annealing operations failed to detect regions of high temperatures in the core that led to a substantial part of the reactor becoming engulfed in ames. The re was eventually brought under control by applying water to the core, which fortunately did not produce an explosion of the kind that destroyed the much larger reactor at Chernobyl in 1986. Nonetheless, the release of 131 I was sufciently great to warrant a milk distribution ban in an area of 500 km2 around Windscale Works, and the information surrounding the emission of 210 Po (used in the initiators of early weapons) was somewhat murky and to this day remains controversial. Of interest is how Lorna Arnold sets all this in its proper political context. The much more sophisticated Calder Hall reactors started to come on-line in 1956 and were providing weapons materials from this time. Meanwhile, the demands on the Windscale Piles were becoming
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Book reviews

ever greaternot only 239 Pu and 210 Po were being produced, but (from 1954) 3 H and a whole range of other radionuclidesand the difculties with Wigner energy releases were growing more complex. As Lorna Arnold succinctly put puts it, the continued operation of the Windscale Piles under these circumstances was an accident waiting to happen. The warning signs were there, but the political climate did not invite the necessary action, and ultimately, it was the Windscale operators who bore the blame for the accident in what was a rather distasteful, but possibly expedient, exercise of political power by the Prime Minister and his senior ofcials. Thankfully, this fascinating story can now be told by someone as capable as Lorna Arnold. Do I have any criticisms of this impressive book? Well, yes, I do. I am surprised that the publishers have not provided any pictures or maps, or more than the two line-diagrams that are to be

found in the preliminary material. It is okay for those readers who have some previous knowledge of the accident, but more supporting material would surely have assisted those new to the subject. I would also hope that a way will be found to add to later editions of the book as further information comes to lightfor example, documents relating to the discussions on 210 Po and other emissions during the re, which took place in 1983, have been released early into The National Archives, and decommissioning operations at Windscale Pile No. 1 may shed light on what happened in October 1957. Nonetheless, any criticism that may be made pales into insignicance against the monumental achievement that is Lorna Arnolds in writing this book. This is how technical history should be researched and written and I cannot recommend this book too highly. Richard Wakeford

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