Figure 1. Windscale towers. Calder Hall in the background After World War II, the British were desperate to get the bomb. They needed weapons grade plutonium. But the Special Relationship with the USA did not include sharing secrets on plutonium production. They were on their own. What they came up with was two enormous, klutzy piles of graphite in northwest England at a place called Windscale. Cartridges containing uranium were pushed into holes in the graphite on one side, pushing the irradiated cartridge already in the hole out the other. The reactors were air cooled. The poorly designed facility experienced continuing problems, stuck and broken cartridges, unexplained temperature excursions, and sporadic leaks.
It’s hard to envision a release without a panic when people 500 miles away from the E. Palestine derailment were in a panic. (Which is not to minimize the immediate impact to the E. Palestine community and surrounding area).
Of course lots of super scary documentaries about Windscale came out later replete with ominous music and Geiger counter ticking. I remember one where somebody found some Po210 specs in the dirt therefore it was implied that everyone in Cumbria was going to die. Somehow throwing out the milk was spun as a bad “cover up” thing rather than a good thing. The butter probably would have had a longer shelf life due to the strong beta dose!
As I heard it, long before the accident, military highups ordered a compromise of the basic design safety standards to speed up the production of Plutonium causing the top two project chiefs to resign. While it is great to use this example of how a serious nuclear accident did NOT cause a health disaster as some models would predict, It is also important to emphasize that Windscale was a military installation dedicated to producing weapons grade plutonium--it was not a nuclear power plant.
Correct Windscale was a lousy design that was abused. It was the height of the Cold War.
But we must avoid any implication that releases will not happen at a commercial nuclear power plant. This idiotic claim has already been proven false. And nuclear power plants face a number of problems that Windscale did not including high pressure steam, and evolution of hydrogen. If nuclear power is truly successful. we will need something like 25,000 large nuke plants. On such a planet, we can expect a sizable release every few years or less. Please see
Releases are tolerable in return for the benefits, as long as we don't do something criminally stupid like toss hundreds of frail, elderly into buses and tell them to fend for themselves.
The man most responsible for putting out the fire was Tom Tuohy. In the process, he intentionally exposed himself to large amounts of radiation multiple times. Predictably, top management in the British weapons program attempted to blame the fire on operator error. Tuohy called them "a shower of bastards." The man had a way with words. Tom Tuohy died at age 90. RIP.
Jack - I can't find a way to send you an email, so I'll throw a comment here. I'm delighted to have found your blog. I used to design electronics for radiation detectors, specifically X-ray spectrometers for EDS and XRF systems. I've been a low-level advocate of nuclear power for years. In 2011, I did an Earth Day presentation at my kids' elementary school for Earth Day (and kudos for an enlightened administration for letting me do it), titled "A Rational Environmentalist's Guide to Nuclear Power". If you search that, you can still find the original version on Scribd. I started the talk by asking who would be terrified to live within 50 miles of a nuclear plant. All hands went up, including the science teacher. I said surprise, you all do -- at the time NJ got over half its power from Oyster Creek. I looked around and noted the absence of any students with two or more heads...
In your list of publications falsifying LNT, I'm sure you're aware of Bernard Cohen's work, but are you also familiar with the 1991 Nuclear Shipyard Workers Study for long-term low-level exposure, and the work at LBL by Neumaier et. al., “Evidence for formation of DNA repair centers and dose-response nonlinearity in human cells”, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 108? They essentially busted LNT (politely phrased as "raises questions about") and showed the cellular repair mechanism in action. If you can see my email address as a subscriber, please say hello.
"including the science teacher" -- perhaps I should explain it was a Quaker K-8 school. Teachers in Quaker schools come with a set of left-leaning biases, but it was otherwise a great choice for our kids and I don't like the conventional split of "middle school". Let's put all the hormonal kids in a barrel for 3 years and see what comes out. What can possibly go wrong? In this school, the 7-8th graders became "meeting partners" and mentors to the k-2 kids. The young ones loved it, the older ones learned responsibility.
Which leads directly into the choice of handle. It's the part about questioning conventional wisdom that appeals to me. Call it skepticism more than what cynicism has come to mean in modern times. The image of wandering around with a lamp I also find amusing. I do wear clothes, at least when going out to dinner.
Radiation is all about the numbers. You would think that would be obvious since radiation is ubiquitous. The only interesting question is how much? But I could not find a number anywhere in this piece. My guess is the Sellafield numbers will be similar to Hanford, where
the US taxpayer is supposed to pay 500 billion dollars to lower dose rates that are already well below background on most of the planet in one place and raise them somewhere else. See
With respect to the swarf leaking, the only gamma emitter left in the old stuff will be Cs-137.
That material should be fairly easy to handle by now. I'd move it to dry casks and hold it there until there's enough breeder reactor demand for the U-238. Deep geologic disposal is counterproductive nonsense. https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/deep-geologic-hubris
It’s hard to envision a release without a panic when people 500 miles away from the E. Palestine derailment were in a panic. (Which is not to minimize the immediate impact to the E. Palestine community and surrounding area).
Good post, Jack.
Of course lots of super scary documentaries about Windscale came out later replete with ominous music and Geiger counter ticking. I remember one where somebody found some Po210 specs in the dirt therefore it was implied that everyone in Cumbria was going to die. Somehow throwing out the milk was spun as a bad “cover up” thing rather than a good thing. The butter probably would have had a longer shelf life due to the strong beta dose!
As I heard it, long before the accident, military highups ordered a compromise of the basic design safety standards to speed up the production of Plutonium causing the top two project chiefs to resign. While it is great to use this example of how a serious nuclear accident did NOT cause a health disaster as some models would predict, It is also important to emphasize that Windscale was a military installation dedicated to producing weapons grade plutonium--it was not a nuclear power plant.
Clyde,
Correct Windscale was a lousy design that was abused. It was the height of the Cold War.
But we must avoid any implication that releases will not happen at a commercial nuclear power plant. This idiotic claim has already been proven false. And nuclear power plants face a number of problems that Windscale did not including high pressure steam, and evolution of hydrogen. If nuclear power is truly successful. we will need something like 25,000 large nuke plants. On such a planet, we can expect a sizable release every few years or less. Please see
https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/the-two-lies-that-killed-nuclear
Releases are tolerable in return for the benefits, as long as we don't do something criminally stupid like toss hundreds of frail, elderly into buses and tell them to fend for themselves.
The Windscale experience makes this point.
The man most responsible for putting out the fire was Tom Tuohy. In the process, he intentionally exposed himself to large amounts of radiation multiple times. Predictably, top management in the British weapons program attempted to blame the fire on operator error. Tuohy called them "a shower of bastards." The man had a way with words. Tom Tuohy died at age 90. RIP.
Jack - I can't find a way to send you an email, so I'll throw a comment here. I'm delighted to have found your blog. I used to design electronics for radiation detectors, specifically X-ray spectrometers for EDS and XRF systems. I've been a low-level advocate of nuclear power for years. In 2011, I did an Earth Day presentation at my kids' elementary school for Earth Day (and kudos for an enlightened administration for letting me do it), titled "A Rational Environmentalist's Guide to Nuclear Power". If you search that, you can still find the original version on Scribd. I started the talk by asking who would be terrified to live within 50 miles of a nuclear plant. All hands went up, including the science teacher. I said surprise, you all do -- at the time NJ got over half its power from Oyster Creek. I looked around and noted the absence of any students with two or more heads...
In your list of publications falsifying LNT, I'm sure you're aware of Bernard Cohen's work, but are you also familiar with the 1991 Nuclear Shipyard Workers Study for long-term low-level exposure, and the work at LBL by Neumaier et. al., “Evidence for formation of DNA repair centers and dose-response nonlinearity in human cells”, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 108? They essentially busted LNT (politely phrased as "raises questions about") and showed the cellular repair mechanism in action. If you can see my email address as a subscriber, please say hello.
What really scary is "including the science teacher'.
The Flop book touches on most of the references you mention.
But why would anybody pick a handle like Diogenes.
He would applaud the coarseness of current American society which I find appalling.
"including the science teacher" -- perhaps I should explain it was a Quaker K-8 school. Teachers in Quaker schools come with a set of left-leaning biases, but it was otherwise a great choice for our kids and I don't like the conventional split of "middle school". Let's put all the hormonal kids in a barrel for 3 years and see what comes out. What can possibly go wrong? In this school, the 7-8th graders became "meeting partners" and mentors to the k-2 kids. The young ones loved it, the older ones learned responsibility.
Which leads directly into the choice of handle. It's the part about questioning conventional wisdom that appeals to me. Call it skepticism more than what cynicism has come to mean in modern times. The image of wandering around with a lamp I also find amusing. I do wear clothes, at least when going out to dinner.
Any thoughts on the current fears about Sellafield?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/05/sellafield-nuclear-site-leak-could-pose-risk-to-public
Kieran,
Radiation is all about the numbers. You would think that would be obvious since radiation is ubiquitous. The only interesting question is how much? But I could not find a number anywhere in this piece. My guess is the Sellafield numbers will be similar to Hanford, where
the US taxpayer is supposed to pay 500 billion dollars to lower dose rates that are already well below background on most of the planet in one place and raise them somewhere else. See
https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/you-want-nuclear-waste-ill-show-you
With respect to the swarf leaking, the only gamma emitter left in the old stuff will be Cs-137.
That material should be fairly easy to handle by now. I'd move it to dry casks and hold it there until there's enough breeder reactor demand for the U-238. Deep geologic disposal is counterproductive nonsense. https://jackdevanney.substack.com/p/deep-geologic-hubris