Comments on: The Windscale Disaster

By: nucbob

nucbob — Fri, 25 Jun 2021 10:40:14 +0000

The root cause of the fire in the reactor was that it was being pushed beyond its design limits and being asked to do things it was not designed for.
There was a massive push to produce sufficient plutonium for a big atom bomb so 2 major changes were made :-
The cooling fins on the Aluminium boats containing the natural Uranium were removed to increase the neutron flux levels – this led to them running hotter.
Isotope cartridges were inserted to produce tritium and other isotopes need – this changed the characteristics of the reactors.
From its inception the number of temperature sensors fitted was inadequate – done to save costs.

By: JarvisLoop

JarvisLoop — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 19:58:57 +0000

Two years already?

Gad.

By: JarvisLoop

JarvisLoop — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 14:31:56 +0000

Eleven years ago, I commented that DI is far superior to Failure Magazine (failuremag.com). It is even more true today.

Simply put, Failure Magazine is a whopping failure in that they cannot bring themselves to discuss the failures of the political organizations that they support.

Damn Interesting rarely ventures into politics, but, when it does, it only reports, and it is utterly neutral.

By: JarvisLoop

JarvisLoop — Sun, 07 Oct 2018 23:17:05 +0000

It’s good to be back in this one.

By: JohnAllen

JohnAllen — Thu, 13 Nov 2014 17:10:54 +0000

The filter elements in the Cockcroft filters were approximately one metre square and fitted into a large support matrix, but one of the problems with them was they restricted the air flow to much for the necessary amount of cooling required. So often many of the elements were removed to increase the flow of cooling air. Much of the dust in the form of a white power was to be found all over the local area. One of the principal scientific officers working at Windscale built his own Geiger counter and one day when his daughter came home from school, as she removed her beret he noticed a line of white powder across her forehead, he used his Geiger counter to measure any radiation and his devise went fully off the scale. This might explain where the missing tons of Plutonium went.

By: Theodore

Theodore — Thu, 08 May 2014 08:45:46 +0000

I would suggest that the figures for Britain wide cancers is very much higher and that collation of those statistics would have been impossible at the time. Now even more so. Norway must have experienced some sort of spike in cancers perhaps they could fill in the picture that our establishment wouldn’t. Spontaneous Leukemia for example did spike in the 60’s but quite by how much ?

By: DeLuzional

DeLuzional — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:44:05 +0000

I thought most of you would enjoy this

http://www.kiddofspeed.com/default.htm

By: DeLuzional

DeLuzional — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 05:10:14 +0000

[quote]Thag said: “Con-fusion say “He who splits atom, have bad eve.””[/quote]

says everything I think…:)

By: the real michael

the real michael — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:28:56 +0000

The heros of this farce were indeed the ZEROS
who caused this to happen in the first place… in an attempt

to cool the overheating chambers they blew oxygen through

them…. what normally
happens (as in a coke oven for instance)
is that the oxygen flow keeps the fire raging until it is

switched off, and thats what happened at windscale, in

laymans terms, the numpties blew cold air in expecting it to

cool but actually caused the raging inferno,it wasnt until

the blower went out that the overheating more or less

stopped. The
techs at windscale were to blame..they wernt heros at

all…just ZEROS…so much for hm gov employing monkeys! just

though id mention it incase you thought that the disaster was

evaded through the intellect of any employee of

windscale…it wasnt.

let me add that windscale was built under the guise
of a modern,clean and safe way of generating
electricity, that is the ONLY reason why it was approved
without too much dissent, but we now know the truth
that it was built to make fuel for bombs designed to
kill all lifeforms, which we dont want..or need..

there is a more modern way to generate electric which
is 100% safe to the enviroment, but the gov dont want to know
because the primary objective is to produce plutonium for

bombs, and until we all dissent against these meglomaniacs
it will continue until the amount of nuclear plants will

become a major irreversable threat to life as we know it.

By: BenKinsey

BenKinsey — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:00:25 +0000

I appreciate the article and thanks for not dumbing it down for us who aren’t scientists, I think it has actually helped me comprehend how nuclear energy works, fission and all that. I also appreciate those who provide insightful comments, I have learned alot since coming to DI!