

Windscale Piles: Cockcroft's Follies avoided nuclear disaster - parados
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-29803990

======
parados
My thermodynamics professor was there as a young scientist when this happened.
From what he told us (probably in clear breach of the Official Secrets Act)
this was a truly terrifying accident. The absence of temperature data meant
that it was impossible to know how extensive the fire was or what remedies
would work. Eventually, in desperation, water was used despite the clear
hazard of creating a catastrophic Hydrogen/Oxygen explosion. My professor
recalled being sent up these towers to monitor any radiation release, perhaps
an early example of "this is a job for the intern".

~~~
x0x0
Just remember everybody: nuclear power is super safe! Luck is a fucking super-
duper strategy for not having nuclear accidents.

    
    
       Construction was well under way when Sir John, the director of the Atomic 
       Energy Research Establishment, insisted the filters be installed.
       
       "He saw that if there was a fire, which was probable, there would be no way 
       of stopping radioactive dust escaping into the atmosphere," his son said.
       
       Because they were last-minute additions, the filters were placed atop the 
       two 360ft (110m) tall chimneys rather than at the base.
       [...]
       
       They were roundly criticised by the engineers building the nuclear facility.
       
       Engineers, who had been told by the government to make the UK a nuclear 
       power by 1952, nicknamed the filters Cockcroft's Follies, mocking them as an 
       expensive piece of pointless delay.
       
       However, as one of Sir John's physicists Terence Price said after the fire, 
       "the word folly did not seem appropriate after the accident".
       http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cumbria-29803990

~~~
zyztem
Nuclear power has nothing to do with that incident. Windscale (Sellafield)
facility was a military plant, it's raison d'etre was Plutonium production for
UK nuclear weapons.

~~~
duskwuff
Also, the Windscale accident was in 1957. That was extremely early in terms of
nuclear _anything_ (power or otherwise); the risks simply weren't all known
yet!

------
arethuza
This accident, along with quite a few others, is covered in the excellent
book: _Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters: From
the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima_ by James Mahaffey:

[http://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Accidents-Meltdowns-
Disasters-M...](http://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Accidents-Meltdowns-Disasters-
Mountains/dp/1605984922/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415135359&sr=8-1&keywords=atomic+accidents+a+history)

Edit: The book is no way anti-nuclear and actually starts with a description
of a horrific accident at a hydro-electric plant.

~~~
bcantrill
YES. This book made the rounds on our entire software engineering team here at
Joyent, and got to the point that people with only passing interest in the
subject were reading it just to get our newly-discovered references to various
nuclear disasters and near-disasters. The book -- unlike most technical non-
fiction -- is written very, very well, and the snarky footnotes are themselves
worth the price of admission. Highly recommended!

------
miander
I think Cockcroft is a small hero in this story. He expended significant
political capital to push through a very unpopular idea because he could see
the importance at a time when absolute safety was not the first concern.
Brave.

