RogerBW's Blog

1995 non-fiction. In October 1957, the core of Windscale's Pile 1 caught fire, burned for three days, and spread radioactive contamination across what was then Cumberland. This is the official history of the incident and its aftermath.

This is a comprehensive and deeply frightening book. It gives a detailed account of the decisions that led to the incident (principally an external demand to produce tritium as fast as possible for the British hydrogen bomb, combined with an ignorance of Wigner energy at the design stage), the incident itself, and (the bulk of the book) what happened afterwards.

The annealing process is described in some detail, and it's clear that this was always rather experimental; there was only very limited information about what was happening inside the pile, for practical reasons of access.

This is not Arnold's story, though she was working on site at the time; but although it is an official history, deliberately dry in style, it is nonetheless a very personal story, dealing with individuals, their decisions on the basis of limited information, and their heroism. (And their reward, in many cases, was to be collectively blamed for the accident so that the Americans wouldn't realise just what had been going on, would continue to take Britain seriously as a nuclear power, and would agree to Harold Macmillan's plans for joint nuclear weapon development.)

The story is frightening because all the decisions are understandable. This isn't some melodrama of evil men in suits banging their fists and saying "give us tritium now" while the technicians say "no, no, it's not safe". Yes, there were technical objections; but more importantly there was a general lack of understanding of detailed risks, both before and after the incident. (Even now, the primary cause of the fire is not known, and almost certainly it never will be.) This is blundering around in the dark, trying to concoct nitroglycerine.