An Atomic Empire: A Technical History of the Rise and Fall of the British Atomic Energy ProgrammeBritain was the first country to exploit atomic energy on a large scale, and at its peak in the mid-1960s, it had generated more electricity from nuclear power than the rest of the world combined.The civil atomic energy programme grew out of the military programme which produced plutonium for atomic weapons. In 1956, Calder Hall power station was opened by the Queen. The very next year, one of the early Windscale reactors caught fire and the world''s first major nuclear accident occurred.The civil programme ran into further difficulty in the mid-1960s and as a consequence of procrastination in the decision-making process, the programme lost momentum and effectively died. No nuclear power stations have been built since Sizewell B in the late 1980s.This book presents a study of Government papers that have recently become available in the public domain. For the first time in history, the research reactor programme is presented in detail, along with a study of the decision-making by the Government, the Atomic Energy Authority (AEA), and the Central Electricity Board (CEGB). This book is aimed at both specialists in nuclear power and the interested public as a technical history on the development and ultimate failure of the British atomic energy programme. |
Contents
1 Introduction | 1 |
2 Atomic Physics | 7 |
3 People and Places | 21 |
4 The British Production Piles | 51 |
5 The British Bomb | 75 |
6 The Windscale Incident | 105 |
7 The Fast Reactor | 139 |
8 PIPPA and Calder Hall | 157 |
The Alternatives | 251 |
13 The Advanced GasCooled Reactor | 265 |
14 The SGHWR | 289 |
15 DRAGON and the HTR | 307 |
16 Atomic Energy at Sea | 321 |
17 Finale | 339 |
Chronology | 347 |
Bibliography | 351 |
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An Atomic Empire: A Technical History of the Rise and Fall of the British ... C N Hill Limited preview - 2013 |
Common terms and phrases
accident Aldermaston Atomic Energy atomic weapons BEPO blower bomb Britain building built Calder Hall carbon dioxide cartridges CEGB channels Cockcroft commercial Committee considerable consortia construction control rods coolant cooling core cost decision device Dounreay Dungeness electricity engineering enriched uranium experimental fast reactor Figure fissile fission products fuel elements fuel rods fusion gas-cooled reactor GLEEP graphite Harwell Heavy Water Reactor Hinton industry irradiated isotope light water light water reactor magnox magnox stations material metal Minister Ministry moderator neutrons nuclear power station nucleus October operation Penney PIPPA plant plutonium polonium possible power programme power reactor pressure vessel PRO AB problem produce plutonium propulsion prototype radioactive research reactors Risley SGHWR Sizewell sodium steel submarine temperature Thermal Reactor tritium warhead Wigner energy Wigner release William Penney Windscale Windscale piles Winfrith Wylfa ZETA