Extinguishing the Atom: The Absurd Reality of the Windscale Fire

Beschreibung

Pouring water on a uranium fire violates every law of nuclear physics and guarantees a massive explosion. Desperate and out of options, they did it anyway, and accidentally saved England.
Decades before Chernobyl, the world’s first catastrophic nuclear reactor fire occurred on the coast of Northern England. In 1957, the core of the Windscale nuclear facility, built hastily to provide plutonium for the British atomic bomb project, ignited into a massive, unstoppable uranium inferno. Standard nuclear physics dictates that pouring water onto a burning uranium fire will cause a devastating hydrogen explosion, instantly vaporizing the facility and irradiating the entire region. Yet, after days of failing to starve the fire of oxygen, the desperate engineers did exactly that. They hooked up standard fire hoses and unleashed water directly into the atomic core—and miraculously, it worked. This book uncovers the harrowing, minute-by-minute timeline of the disaster. We examine the flawed architectural design of the graphite core, the heroic, suicidal bravery of the workers, and the massive government cover-up that quietly renamed the facility to erase the tragedy from public memory. Explore the closest call of the early atomic age. Learn how a terrifying nuclear meltdown was defeated by blind luck and a standard garden hose.

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Hayden Jackson
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windscale fire 1957 british nuclear history reactor meltdown physics cold war disasters atomic energy errors radiation coverup cumbria history

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