Have you ever seen the first nuclear fission reactor?? It was literally nothing more than a bunch of graphite bricks stacked up and the cadmium control rods where pushed in and out by hand. Look it up, it was called CP-1 (or Chicago Pile 1 Reactor)
@@SilvaDreams Thanks, I've seen it, but imo this is still worse, they had this problem with the (flammable) graphite heating up randomly, (no control rods??), raising the temperature by removing the fins whilst adding flammable lithium and magnesium into the rods and then air cooling the thing without a filter at first. This just had to burn down like this, people in the region can be glad someone installed the filters 🔥
@@SilvaDreams to be completely fair that reactor had a power output, when running, of like 200 watts; it didn't get very hot and simple air cooling was in fact enough to keep things cool in normal conditions
Apparently my grandfather was the first of the engineers to spot this fire. He worked at Windscale for many years as an engineer managing the reactor but sadly died of cancer before I was born.
I worked with a bloke who inadvertently predicted it. At the time, he said: "It should be burning out quite nicely now." Little did he realise it was burning out rather too well !
Cancer, huh? I'm sorry for your family. Kind of brings everything together when the last sentence I listened to in the vid talked of how safe nuclear power is - and the first comment is about a cancer death attributed to nuclear power. Safe my a$$. And all costs in: cheap my a$$.
@@Steve_MFr How did you jump to the conclusion that his work in the nuclear industry was related to his cancer ? To 'spot' the fire would mean being in the control room with sight of the relevant temperature gauges. That would not be an 'active' area.
@@barnabyhughes2084 not as safe as a coal plant in the worst case scenario but safe if all the safety measures are followed, of course there is always something unexpected than a happens like in Fukushima but over all this years there's only ever been 2 really bad nuclear cases
yeah man all that happened was a turbine tank was breached and a small roof fire, nothing harmful what? you see a blue glow from it during the night that is often caused by extremely radioactive materials ionizing the atmosphere? what are you on? crack?
They tried water to stop the fire but it didn't work, the only thing that did was to cut off the air/oxygen.that was feeding the fire which did work - if you have ever watched the film "Backdraft" with Kurt Russell and seen the ignition of the "backdraft" when air/oxygen was introduced and became "fuel" it could use.
Thanks! I Really apreciate all the positive comments. Untill I have over 1,000 subscribers the youtube algorithm isn't very supportive! Spread the word!
Annealing the graphite core was a very dangerous procedure. The energy that built up with the core if this was not done would cause runaways and many problems. End as with all early nuclear reactors they never had enough temperature probes. These reactors also used proud English natural graphite. Which Which would expand in all directions as the energy was increased. The Americans used some synthetic graphite which would only increase in lengthwise. This graphite problem caused the channels to swell more and more. Which in turn caused the fuel cartridges to get stuck. When they finally decided to flood the reactor with water they were worried that it would cause a massive hydrogen explosion which luckily didn't happen.
TBH, because of the weird intro sound I thought it was going to be one of those annoying american documentaries with music louder than the vocals, too much rhetoric and endless repetition. Almost closed it, glad I didn't!
@@BehindDesigns Well dude, it just showed up on my front page and it's the first video I've seen from you, so you're getting momentum. Keep it up, subscribed already and about to head into your other videos.
American reactors... Soviets were just American reactors copied via espionage. Air cooling would have worked if all the precautions and science had been followed.
Really I don't see how air-cooled is easier than water. If your electricity goes, you're screwed either way. More simple solution surely would be to submerge the thing in water, which will then turn the water into steam, which you can condense using heat sinks and reuse the same water over and over. If you build it near the sea you can use seawater as the heat sink.
@@pauldilley8974 well, ideally, all reactors should be capable of passive cooling in the event of an accident. It's just useful to have active cooling, as it allows you to have a far higher power throughput.
@@Ccirgrg you missed the point. He's not blaming kids for playing with matches, he's pointing out how hypocritical we can be as adults. we tell children to not play with matches as if we don't do worse ourselves.
Honestly, I had no idea this happened and im a UK citizen, Really well made video, no dead air and fantastic information. Thank you for your effort you have clearly put in!
You might want to watch a few other videos. He left out a lot of information (for example, the faked nuclear blast) that is just as relevant (to their desperation to rush matters) and interesting.
Thanks, I learnt about this story a long time ago and couldn't ever understand why it wasn't common knowledge. The amount of rendering got a little out of controll but glad you like it.
You might want to watch a few other videos. He left out a lot of information (for example, the faked nuclear test) that is just as relevant (to their desperation to rush matters) and interesting.
@@BehindDesigns Anything that embarrasses government aint gonna get corporate adverstiser sponsors, diplomatic embarrasing events happen all the time in Westminster yet never heard about cause corporate endorsers end your career essentially.
I've seen several videos on Windscale and other nuclear reactors, but this one is my favorite. You explain things so well, without throwing around technical terms without explanation. Subscribed!
There was another design flaw, the water trough that the capsules dropped into had a ledge and it was not uncommon for capsules to miss or sometimes crack open. Windscale had been releasing small amounts of radiation long before the fire, to the point that one of the operators borrowed a geiger counter and tested the local countryside. When he raised the issue he was fired.
"Now then Dimitri. You know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the bomb?... The bomb, Dimitri... The hydrogen bomb."
Yeah media loves the idea of how unchecked mad scientist could end the world, but more often than not they are the ones trying to prevent the disaster after repeatedly being told to create it by people who are absolutely mad but definitely NOT scientists.
Thanks very much for a concise but informative presentation. The Windscale fire shows what can happen in any industry when production pressures are allowed to override safety considerations.
I live in the area and have seen many documentaries on it. I have never seen any that talked about the trimming of the fins or pushing performance to get get more plutonium, never even heard tritium being mentioned. Just a point about the milk. Whilst it may be the official line that all milk was destroyed, that did not happen until 10 days after the fire started and was only done at the processing stage, not the farms. People producing milk for their own use, and friends and family weren't told there was a problem and carried on drinking it. I knew two people whose fathers were on site during the fire, they were both born with congenital deformities. The chimney on the other reactor has now been taken down, they're working on the "Hot" one at the moment. If you look on Google satellite view you get a good view of it.
@@carmadme In case it came over as me questioning things I hadn't seen before, I didn't mean it like that. Just that even on previous documentaries the full story is hard to come by.
@@nlwilson4892 I'm not trying to be obnoxious, but the two major documentaries I've seen (one already mentioned) cover all of the material presented here, and much more (obviously). I believe "Windscale: Britain's Biggest Nuclear Disaster" is the title of the other video (both available on TH-cam last time that I checked). By the way, the plutonium produced there went into weapons tested in Australia (and, ironically, all the data gleaned from these tests was kept secret from Australia). One of these tests dumped an enormous quantity of fallout via heavy rain onto a major dairy farming region. There was some quarantining of milk, but delayed and very limited, so very poorly managed - just as you describe the situation in Britain. I've queried _many_ individuals who have lived their entire lives in that region, but I've yet to discover a single person who remembers a problem with the milk (this test was in '56 iirc).
Absolutely insane. "so we have this stuff that heats up like crazy while it turns to an insanely toxic product and we put it inside a coal-like casing" ->air cooling sounds like a great idea.
@@alfiepicton1339 Britain, with our smaller land mass and wrecked economy after the war, had to cut safety corners in order to produce enough material for the 'big one.'
Great video! The corner-cutting is so reminiscent of countless disasters, the obvious comparison being Chernobyl, but also Challenger, B737-Max and many more... The swiss-cheese model has been shared a lot recently relating to covid prevention, where each slice of holey cheese represents a layer of safety equipment or procedure, and you get a disaster when all the holes line up and something gets through. Cockroft's 'folly' being the last remaining slice at Windscale.
The swiss- cheese model, I had not heard of that, it's a great comparison. The 737 Max incidents, I think are one of the greatest stains on our modern society.
@@BehindDesigns I've just seen this video, which reminded me of your comment. Obviously, this is about Covid but I hope you can see how the logic is applicable to all other types of complex risk. th-cam.com/video/QzGb65UB5LQ/w-d-xo.html
Why does it look just like an RBMK-1000?, the lid does. However the functions are completely different Chernobyl NPP, used water as a coolant for the U-235 rods. And graphite as a neutron flux moderator. Just like the Windscale Reactor. Chernobyl used the uranium to generate heat, and the rods to separate them from each other stopping the reaction, The heat of the U.235 is enough to vaporise water into steam. This is done by using pumps connected to the main basis of water near the plant to pump water through the core, the water that evaporates turns a turbine which generates electricity. The turbines are located in the 1km long turbine hall, with turbines from all Reactor units. The main design flaw Chernobyl had that led to its explosion was the graphite tips on the control rods. The soviets cut corners because it was cheaper. When A3-5 was pressed on April 20th 1986, the rods were forced into the core, however the graphite tips caused the reaction to skyrocket and which leading to an explosion. There was two initial explosions, the first one was from the main reaction that led power megawatts to 30,000. This blew off the lid and damaged the roof a bit. The second one was caused from oxygen mixing with the core and superheated graphite, the second explosion completely blew the entire reactor hall, causing catwalks to fall and the roof to break up blowing up. The roof was layered in tar so the fire would burn for longer.
Both of the air-cooled reactors were functioning as slow-burning Chernobyls for _years_ before the fire. Fission products were strewn about the whole area surrounding it, including the sea. The "Cockroft's Follies" _reduced_ some of this, but plenty still escaped. People are still finding these 'hot particles' to this day. Also, I have no idea what you mean by "precautions", because they were _completely unprepared_ for this event, and only clever impromptu solutions resolved this incident.
@@anhedonianepiphany5588 I kinda agree, what separate Fukushima and Chernobyl from this were explosions. Radioactive elements are usually heavy, especially the Uranium and Plutonium, they are not going into the atmosphere, no matter how strong an industrial fan can be. The lighter radioactive Cobalt, Strontium, Cesium, and especially Iodine are going to be the main concern, however they may be to heavy to make it up the chimney with the exception of Iodine . The Iodine definitely got through the filter, but it has a half-life like 2 weeks. The explosions of Fukushima and Chernobyl blew the contaminants way up into the atmosphere, Most of the Uranium and Plutonium fell almost right away in a couple kilometer diameter of Chernobyl and almost none escaped the reactor of Fukushima. It was the other radioactive elements that spread far.
Cheers to the guy who insisted on the filters, I can't imagine this world without the culture England brings to this world even though they ruled my country to poverty.
from Fraser, husband of Leslie Interesting to note that the two Windscale nuclear piles were cooled by air. The Windscale disaster showed how dangerous this was, leading to the Magnox nuclear power stations being cooled by carbon dioxide gas. If you go to the location now, you'll only see one of the towers, the one where the disaster occurred. The other one has been demolished but the remaining one is too radioactive. Nowadays nobody uses gas cooling, it is all water or heavy water, although the remaining gas-cooled reactors in Britain remain in operation, but will shortly be decommisioned.
The chimney of pile 1 is now also being demolished and they’ve already removed the filter gallery. Pretty soon it will be gone from the Sellafield skyline.
Great video but a little misleading... Churchill was no longer Prime Minster when the Americans detonated the bomb in New Mexico - Labours Clemant Attlee was. The British Atomic bomb was a product of the Labour Goverment and was every bit their creation as the National Health Service and Welfare State
@@Benkenobi8118 Err not quite. Labour developed the bomb but were out of office by 1951, a year before Britains first atomic bomb was tested. The Conservatives were just as penny-pinching as Labour were I'm afraid in the years that followed
Fingers crossed that you don't ever fall on hard times, since you apparently loathe any kind of government-sponsored assistance. Then again, maybe it would teach you a lesson in humility, but I'm highly doubtful.
@@anhedonianepiphany5588 I had to leave my country to find work and to get an education because the Labor party in my country prevented me from attending public school, college, or from getting a job in my field. So you'll have to pardon me if I have little desire for 'government assistance'.
Austerity funnily enough killed 1000x more people than Chernobyl did: www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/01/perfect-storm-austerity-behind-130000-deaths-uk-ippr-report If the public had any clue tories would be delegalized and the leaders hung for crimes against humanity...
@@KuK137 This country lives far beyond its means. It takes a special type of delusional thinking to characterise that as "austerity". Reading The Guardian will rot your brain with the nonsense they spew forth.
@@krashd Hell no! The Daily Mail is a rag that is only interested in sensationalism. I challenge anyone to look at this country's debts and unfunded liabilities, and say the country is run prudently without taking the piss! People seem to think that government is a magic money tree. When in reality it is a parasite that is killing its host!
I appreciate you making these sorts of informative videos and the large effort involved, and I appreciate you getting most of the history and facts correct - but I feel compelled to point out that this video has some significant inaccuracies and exaggerations. As others have pointed out, your statement (at 12:25) that "nuclear power, by far, is the safest electric generation method in the world today" is contentious at least, and with the advent of utility scale solar (as opposed to rooftop solar) simply not true - even if you ignore the potential 'worst case' consequences of any incident. Some other (admittedly less important) errors are at 2.34 (fission does not work that way), at 6.16 (the reactor needed more neutron flux, not more heat, although more neutron flux does produce more heat) and at 8.16 (hydrogen bombs generally do not need more plutonium than fission-only bombs since the use of a plutonium 'spark plug' in the second stage is generally offset by being able to have a smaller core in the first stage ['trigger']). Also, a careful read of the history (e.g. at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_Piles ) indicates your comments about safety concerns being ignored and (at 9.18) that the plant was 'operating far beyond any acceptable safety protocols' are exaggerations/hyperbole - it is more accurate to say that engineers were under production pressure and 'learning as they went along' rather than knowingly ignoring safety protocols. I can also find no evidence for your claim at 9.22 that Christopher Hinton 'resigned in protest'. However, I do want to say that the overall thrust of the video was informative and made it clear that 'Cockcroft's folly' filters were very important in avoiding a much more dangerous outcome of the fire. Other good videos on this subject are th-cam.com/video/GsNucRdayX0/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=Stickytape%27n%27rust and at th-cam.com/video/j5wZoswSNwc/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=PlainlyDifficult
Thank you for your feedback, and the effort in your reply. As you say a few people have commented about my closing statement. I did reply to first person who picked me up on that explaining my point and how I reached that conclusion. I shall write out a proper reply to your comment later when I have some more time and pin it to the top. Thanks for watching and contributing it’s very much appreciated!
You did a great job with this presentation. I have watched several videos on this topic, and yours is the best when it comes to explanation of the purpose of this particular reactor and what went wrong.
Yet no mention was made of the fact it was an unknown second level of Wigner energy that was the cause of the fire. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigner_effect
Oh Dear! At 2:02 appears a Cube with Pu244 written on it. But for a nuclear weapon you need Pu239 in at least 90 % purity (better 93% in a quality called "Super grade"). With Pu244 - which cannot be produced in a nucelar reactor btw - it is not possible to initiate a meaningful chain reaction. Pu244 has such a high rate of spontaneous fission (by nine orders of magnitude greater compared to Pu239) that every bomb built of Pu244 would suffer a far to early ingnition.
Thanks for pointing this out. You have a very keen eye, and clearly great expertise in the subject. Also, thanks for taking the time to explain why it is a mistake, I am no nuclear scientist but now I know a little more about the subject.
the reactor here was not designed for power production, it was a consumer of power.. its only purpose was that of making bomb material. It was also a protype beeing operated by people who felt they could not say "no" to the govenment. The reality is that there are designs for making Nuclear Power plants out there that in theroy fail safe, are more efficent at producing power, but dont produce weapons material. I wounder why the reserch has not been done on those to finish up the designs?
Many remember the Windscale, out of those who do, I wonder how many realised it wasn't ever a power station, just a bomb factory, when you cut the to the chase. For that matter, although the close by Calder Hall was hailed and proclaimed to be the beginning of electricity 'too cheap to meter' knew it's true purpose, and and how (according to sources at Windscale) it often took *from* the National Grid, rather than putting anything useful back in... Also, excellent & concise video.
Or even - as shown in this video - two things in the Windscale design: (a) air will support combustion allowing the core to catch fire and (b) unfiltered air cooling could allow the escape of radioactive contamination to the surrounding environment. Subsequent designs of British civil thermal reactors were cooled by CO2 gas in closed loops.
The approach at the time was very basic, and scientists hadn't much of influence over the precautions used. Thankfully the exhaust was filtered, but to this day, I wonder why the graphite block hadn't any embedded temperature monitoring at each channel.
This was a super interesting video off the nuclear disaster that was Chernobyl. I didn't realise how close we came to fallout and proves that nothing should be considered 'folly', when peoples lives are at risk. A well put together account!
I saw Cockcroft's follies & heard this story then. The man who told me this story also told me that there is no way of removing the filters because of the contamination risk, it was also pointed out to me that these filters will be dangerous for far longer than the structure will last. So hold your speech about nuck being the safest way to produce electricity, because the mess from the 50s has yet to be safely delt with yet.
The footage at 7:11 does not show Operation Hurricane, the first british nuclear test of 1952, but the test shot Baker of the US Operation Crossroads of 1946.
I have been to Windscale and seen the buildings there about 1980 and was aware of an accident but not the details which seems to have been suppressed in the UK, probably due to post-war national embarrassment. I have heard charges of elevated radioactivity around Sellafield. Hinton and Cockroft should be considered national heroes, they saved the entire country not to mention extended Continental Europe.
It might be interesting to note that this entry came to light after watching something else about the history of the Chernobyl disaster today. Don’t know why that turned up, but after viewing it, loads of related ones were presented by YT - yours is one of them! The related history is the development of the Calder Hall power station/plutonium plant which was commissioned a few years later, with the ‘Magnox’ reactor design. I can vaguely remember watching an old publicity film about it (maybe an old BFI one), which included some narrative along the lines of “the electricity output is so cheap you don’t need to meter it….” Maybe feeding into the grid was a side effect, cash flow wise, at first.
The way this thing was built is absolutely horrifying
Have you ever seen the first nuclear fission reactor?? It was literally nothing more than a bunch of graphite bricks stacked up and the cadmium control rods where pushed in and out by hand.
Look it up, it was called CP-1 (or Chicago Pile 1 Reactor)
@@SilvaDreams Thanks, I've seen it, but imo this is still worse, they had this problem with the (flammable) graphite heating up randomly, (no control rods??), raising the temperature by removing the fins whilst adding flammable lithium and magnesium into the rods and then air cooling the thing without a filter at first. This just had to burn down like this, people in the region can be glad someone installed the filters 🔥
@@SilvaDreams to be completely fair that reactor had a power output, when running, of like 200 watts; it didn't get very hot and simple air cooling was in fact enough to keep things cool in normal conditions
@@drewgehringer7813 CP-1 had no power output initially, it was a test to see if they could reach criticality and start a reaction and control it.
Bombs will make us great again
Apparently my grandfather was the first of the engineers to spot this fire. He worked at Windscale for many years as an engineer managing the reactor but sadly died of cancer before I was born.
I worked with a bloke who inadvertently predicted it. At the time, he said: "It should be burning out quite nicely now." Little did he realise it was burning out rather too well !
Cancer, huh? I'm sorry for your family. Kind of brings everything together when the last sentence I listened to in the vid talked of how safe nuclear power is - and the first comment is about a cancer death attributed to nuclear power. Safe my a$$. And all costs in: cheap my a$$.
@@Steve_MFr How did you jump to the conclusion that his work in the nuclear industry was related to his cancer ?
To 'spot' the fire would mean being in the control room with sight of the relevant temperature gauges. That would not be an 'active' area.
@@Steve_MFr Lots of people smarter than you have dedicated careers to researching nuclear power, it is safer.
@@barnabyhughes2084 not as safe as a coal plant in the worst case scenario but safe if all the safety measures are followed, of course there is always something unexpected than a happens like in Fukushima but over all this years there's only ever been 2 really bad nuclear cases
Sir Cockroft literally saved the UK.
Na, it was Terrence Price
US: We have water cooling
UK: Nah fam air cooling
USSR: Hehe, RBMK go 3 roentgen.
Dude im dead with this one😌👌🏾
3.6
yeah man all that happened was a turbine tank was breached and a small roof fire, nothing harmful
what? you see a blue glow from it during the night that is often caused by extremely radioactive materials ionizing the atmosphere? what are you on? crack?
They tried water to stop the fire but it didn't work, the only thing that did was to cut off the air/oxygen.that was feeding the fire which did work - if you have ever watched the film "Backdraft" with Kurt Russell and seen the ignition of the "backdraft" when air/oxygen was introduced and became "fuel" it could use.
Algorithm brought me here a bit late, but I'm glad it did.
Me too!
Same!
Hardly a bit late with the algorithm good amount of times it digs up 5/6 year old vids 🤣
Same
Do you only watch stuff released in the last 6 months? Missing out on a lot of good content!
Why does this have so little views? Its really well done!
Thanks! I Really apreciate all the positive comments. Untill I have over 1,000 subscribers the youtube algorithm isn't very supportive! Spread the word!
I was wondering the same exact thing
Annealing the graphite core was a very dangerous procedure. The energy that built up with the core if this was not done would cause runaways and many problems. End as with all early nuclear reactors they never had enough temperature probes.
These reactors also used proud English natural graphite. Which Which would expand in all directions as the energy was increased. The Americans used some synthetic graphite which would only increase in lengthwise. This graphite problem caused the channels to swell more and more. Which in turn caused the fuel cartridges to get stuck.
When they finally decided to flood the reactor with water they were worried that it would cause a massive hydrogen explosion which luckily didn't happen.
TBH, because of the weird intro sound I thought it was going to be one of those annoying american documentaries with music louder than the vocals, too much rhetoric and endless repetition. Almost closed it, glad I didn't!
@@BehindDesigns Well dude, it just showed up on my front page and it's the first video I've seen from you, so you're getting momentum.
Keep it up, subscribed already and about to head into your other videos.
American and soviet reactors: water cooled
Britain: hold my fan
American reactors... Soviets were just American reactors copied via espionage. Air cooling would have worked if all the precautions and science had been followed.
Lmao the Soviets often air cooled too.
Really I don't see how air-cooled is easier than water. If your electricity goes, you're screwed either way.
More simple solution surely would be to submerge the thing in water, which will then turn the water into steam, which you can condense using heat sinks and reuse the same water over and over. If you build it near the sea you can use seawater as the heat sink.
@@pauldilley8974 well, ideally, all reactors should be capable of passive cooling in the event of an accident. It's just useful to have active cooling, as it allows you to have a far higher power throughput.
@@pauldilley8974 well it was built near the sea. It was great until some radioactive waste was pumped into it
"The word folly did not seem appropriate after the accident" - Terence Price, MoD Science Advisor
We tell our kids not to play with matches and then we do this.
2 reasons:
1. They're kids who lack life experience and maturity to handle dangerous situations
2. You care about your kids
@@Ccirgrg you missed the point. He's not blaming kids for playing with matches, he's pointing out how hypocritical we can be as adults. we tell children to not play with matches as if we don't do worse ourselves.
Fun fact.
The UK Nuclear Program was miles ahead of the Manhatten Project before we agreed to join it.
Honestly, I had no idea this happened and im a UK citizen,
Really well made video, no dead air and fantastic information.
Thank you for your effort you have clearly put in!
You might want to watch a few other videos. He left out a lot of information (for example, the faked nuclear blast) that is just as relevant (to their desperation to rush matters) and interesting.
Really? This stuff was in GCSE textbooks.
I’d heard of the Windscale incident, I knew it could have been a lot worse, but I didn’t know the details.
If you didn't know about that, look up the SS Richard Montgomery. That one will REALLY give you pause.
Same
Would like but the like number is nice
I’ve seen other videos on windscale but non as concise as this one. Well done.
Thanks, I learnt about this story a long time ago and couldn't ever understand why it wasn't common knowledge. The amount of rendering got a little out of controll but glad you like it.
You might want to watch a few other videos. He left out a lot of information (for example, the faked nuclear test) that is just as relevant (to their desperation to rush matters) and interesting.
@@BehindDesigns Anything that embarrasses government aint gonna get corporate adverstiser sponsors, diplomatic embarrasing events happen all the time in Westminster yet never heard about cause corporate endorsers end your career essentially.
The 3D animations are especially good to help explain things in visual terms.
I am sure even Dyatlov would have said 'Nyet" to an air cooled reactor!! Shocking Design oversight!!
Dounno, he might look at it and say; Not great, not terrible...
20 - 20 Hindsight is a wonderful gift.
Bruh, a design like that in the USSR would result in the designers being fired immediately lol
@@Fred_the_1996 the Soviets did build a reactor like that though.
@@dylanpresidafonseca2545 still, it wasn't pushed to the limit like in windscale
I've seen several videos on Windscale and other nuclear reactors, but this one is my favorite. You explain things so well, without throwing around technical terms without explanation. Subscribed!
Thanks!
There was another design flaw, the water trough that the capsules dropped into had a ledge and it was not uncommon for capsules to miss or sometimes crack open. Windscale had been releasing small amounts of radiation long before the fire, to the point that one of the operators borrowed a geiger counter and tested the local countryside. When he raised the issue he was fired.
"Now then Dimitri. You know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the bomb?... The bomb, Dimitri... The hydrogen bomb."
Best. Movie Ever.
@@samuelfischman6949 what film?
@@meetrasurrik6982 dr strangelove
I read that in Viktor Reznov's voice.....
When people who dont know what theyre doing/talking about are in charge of people who do.
Yeah media loves the idea of how unchecked mad scientist could end the world, but more often than not they are the ones trying to prevent the disaster after repeatedly being told to create it by people who are absolutely mad but definitely NOT scientists.
This is so high quality I read 1.79k Subs as 1.79m and didnt bat an eye! Great work
Thanks very much for a concise but informative presentation. The Windscale fire shows what can happen in any industry when production pressures are allowed to override safety considerations.
Well said! Thanks for the support.
I had no idea how bad this could have been
First time I had ever heard of this, pretty shocking.
I live in the area and have seen many documentaries on it. I have never seen any that talked about the trimming of the fins or pushing performance to get get more plutonium, never even heard tritium being mentioned.
Just a point about the milk. Whilst it may be the official line that all milk was destroyed, that did not happen until 10 days after the fire started and was only done at the processing stage, not the farms. People producing milk for their own use, and friends and family weren't told there was a problem and carried on drinking it.
I knew two people whose fathers were on site during the fire, they were both born with congenital deformities.
The chimney on the other reactor has now been taken down, they're working on the "Hot" one at the moment. If you look on Google satellite view you get a good view of it.
I think it was equinox a very British bomb covered the windscale accident
@@carmadme In case it came over as me questioning things I hadn't seen before, I didn't mean it like that. Just that even on previous documentaries the full story is hard to come by.
@@nlwilson4892 I'm not trying to be obnoxious, but the two major documentaries I've seen (one already mentioned) cover all of the material presented here, and much more (obviously). I believe "Windscale: Britain's Biggest Nuclear Disaster" is the title of the other video (both available on TH-cam last time that I checked).
By the way, the plutonium produced there went into weapons tested in Australia (and, ironically, all the data gleaned from these tests was kept secret from Australia). One of these tests dumped an enormous quantity of fallout via heavy rain onto a major dairy farming region. There was some quarantining of milk, but delayed and very limited, so very poorly managed - just as you describe the situation in Britain. I've queried _many_ individuals who have lived their entire lives in that region, but I've yet to discover a single person who remembers a problem with the milk (this test was in '56 iirc).
Apologies, the other documentary, beside the one title I gave, is an episode of BBC1's Inside Story called "Our Reactor Is On Fire".
underrated content
this deserves so much more views!
This is genuinely one of the most well put together videos I've seen in a while this deserves way more recognition.
at the moment i heard it was open air cooled core i was like they did what?!
yup, just insane. and they even added magnezium as if that wasn't enough already.
@@Matticitt war and power makes people disregard safety.
Absolutely insane.
"so we have this stuff that heats up like crazy while it turns to an insanely toxic product and we put it inside a coal-like casing"
->air cooling sounds like a great idea.
@@alfiepicton1339 Britain, with our smaller land mass and wrecked economy after the war, had to cut safety corners in order to produce enough material for the 'big one.'
@@fluffigverbimmelt that “coal like casing” is what stops radiation from leaking out the sides lol
I think you've hit smth in the algorithm, keep up the good work and the algorithm gods will send more of us. I'm sure
Great video! The corner-cutting is so reminiscent of countless disasters, the obvious comparison being Chernobyl, but also Challenger, B737-Max and many more...
The swiss-cheese model has been shared a lot recently relating to covid prevention, where each slice of holey cheese represents a layer of safety equipment or procedure, and you get a disaster when all the holes line up and something gets through. Cockroft's 'folly' being the last remaining slice at Windscale.
The swiss- cheese model, I had not heard of that, it's a great comparison. The 737 Max incidents, I think are one of the greatest stains on our modern society.
@@BehindDesigns I've just seen this video, which reminded me of your comment. Obviously, this is about Covid but I hope you can see how the logic is applicable to all other types of complex risk.
th-cam.com/video/QzGb65UB5LQ/w-d-xo.html
Absolutely fantastic content man, I can't believe how small your channel is, I can't wait to see more videos from you!
Thanks very much!
Why does it look just like an RBMK-1000?, the lid does. However the functions are completely different
Chernobyl NPP, used water as a coolant for the U-235 rods. And graphite as a neutron flux moderator. Just like the Windscale Reactor. Chernobyl used the uranium to generate heat, and the rods to separate them from each other stopping the reaction,
The heat of the U.235 is enough to vaporise water into steam. This is done by using pumps connected to the main basis of water near the plant to pump water through the core, the water that evaporates turns a turbine which generates electricity. The turbines are located in the 1km long turbine hall, with turbines from all Reactor units. The main design flaw Chernobyl had that led to its explosion was the graphite tips on the control rods. The soviets cut corners because it was cheaper. When A3-5 was pressed on April 20th 1986, the rods were forced into the core, however the graphite tips caused the reaction to skyrocket and which leading to an explosion. There was two initial explosions, the first one was from the main reaction that led power megawatts to 30,000. This blew off the lid and damaged the roof a bit. The second one was caused from oxygen mixing with the core and superheated graphite, the second explosion completely blew the entire reactor hall, causing catwalks to fall and the roof to break up blowing up. The roof was layered in tar so the fire would burn for longer.
Windscale, the lesser known accident as precautions prevented it from being worse.
Both of the air-cooled reactors were functioning as slow-burning Chernobyls for _years_ before the fire. Fission products were strewn about the whole area surrounding it, including the sea. The "Cockroft's Follies" _reduced_ some of this, but plenty still escaped. People are still finding these 'hot particles' to this day.
Also, I have no idea what you mean by "precautions", because they were _completely unprepared_ for this event, and only clever impromptu solutions resolved this incident.
@@anhedonianepiphany5588 I kinda agree, what separate Fukushima and Chernobyl from this were explosions. Radioactive elements are usually heavy, especially the Uranium and Plutonium, they are not going into the atmosphere, no matter how strong an industrial fan can be. The lighter radioactive Cobalt, Strontium, Cesium, and especially Iodine are going to be the main concern, however they may be to heavy to make it up the chimney with the exception of Iodine . The Iodine definitely got through the filter, but it has a half-life like 2 weeks. The explosions of Fukushima and Chernobyl blew the contaminants way up into the atmosphere, Most of the Uranium and Plutonium fell almost right away in a couple kilometer diameter of Chernobyl and almost none escaped the reactor of Fukushima. It was the other radioactive elements that spread far.
Only 1.5k subscribers! You will go far mate
Thanks buddy, I hope so.
Well done. Concise, Accurate and well produced - recommend to all, well worth watching.
Thank you, I genuinely really appreciate the support. Glad to have you onboard!
@@BehindDesigns Not 100% accurate. Included no detail about it being due to an unknown second level of stored Wigner energy.
Great video man, hope your channel gets the recognition it deserves
Thank you!
Cheers to the guy who insisted on the filters, I can't imagine this world without the culture England brings to this world even though they ruled my country to poverty.
Which country is this out of curiosity?
@@downpoo could be any 😄
extremely interesting and well made video, good job!
from Fraser, husband of Leslie
Interesting to note that the two Windscale nuclear piles were cooled by air. The Windscale disaster showed how dangerous this was, leading to the Magnox nuclear power stations being cooled by carbon dioxide gas. If you go to the location now, you'll only see one of the towers, the one where the disaster occurred. The other one has been demolished but the remaining one is too radioactive. Nowadays nobody uses gas cooling, it is all water or heavy water, although the remaining gas-cooled reactors in Britain remain in operation, but will shortly be decommisioned.
A shame as our Magnox, and later AGR, plants are some of the safest power plants in operation because of their gas coolant.
The chimney of pile 1 is now also being demolished and they’ve already removed the filter gallery. Pretty soon it will be gone from the Sellafield skyline.
How the hell has this channel had so little attention? This is like mustard and mark felton put together. Instant subscribe from me!
Thanks, those guys are both youtube royalty, so to be compaired to them is a great compliment. Glad you like the videos.
Always great when the algorithm actually works on a creators favour - very pleased to have stumbled upon your channel - subbed and rang the bell!
Thanks! And you rung the bell icon, what a champion!
Great video but a little misleading...
Churchill was no longer Prime Minster when the Americans detonated the bomb in New Mexico - Labours Clemant Attlee was.
The British Atomic bomb was a product of the Labour Goverment and was every bit their creation as the National Health Service and Welfare State
which explains why they cut corners and nearly irradiated every Briton!
@@Benkenobi8118 Err not quite. Labour developed the bomb but were out of office by 1951, a year before Britains first atomic bomb was tested.
The Conservatives were just as penny-pinching as Labour were I'm afraid in the years that followed
Fingers crossed that you don't ever fall on hard times, since you apparently loathe any kind of government-sponsored assistance. Then again, maybe it would teach you a lesson in humility, but I'm highly doubtful.
@@anhedonianepiphany5588 I had to leave my country to find work and to get an education because the Labor party in my country prevented me from attending public school, college, or from getting a job in my field. So you'll have to pardon me if I have little desire for 'government assistance'.
@@Benkenobi8118 Looks like you educated yourself well... you've forgotten how you correctly spell 'labour' for a start!
Air-cooled reactor being pushed way beyond its design limits while making hydrogen bombs? What could possibly go wrong?
It’s a recipe for success! But as the British say there’s Nothing a good cup of tea can’t fix!
@@yeo5811 Objection. *sips tea*
Basically politicians should not be given the power to overrule scientists when it comes to science. And if they are it can end in catastrophe.
That’s exactly how covid 19 happened
This is such high quality! I thought this would have 500k+ views by now
Thanks! Two weeks ago I think it had about 2k so its on its way!
If that thing exploded we all would have looked like we we're from Birmingham
couldn't tell if that was Pripyat after the Chernobyl disaster, or British council housing after decades of austerity
That’s a good point! I lived in Sheffield whilst at university, in the shadow of the infamous park hill estate and that looks worse...
Austerity funnily enough killed 1000x more people than Chernobyl did: www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/01/perfect-storm-austerity-behind-130000-deaths-uk-ippr-report If the public had any clue tories would be delegalized and the leaders hung for crimes against humanity...
@@KuK137 This country lives far beyond its means. It takes a special type of delusional thinking to characterise that as "austerity". Reading The Guardian will rot your brain with the nonsense they spew forth.
@@dalriada842 And once it is rotted away to nothing you become the target audience for the Daily Mail?
@@krashd Hell no! The Daily Mail is a rag that is only interested in sensationalism. I challenge anyone to look at this country's debts and unfunded liabilities, and say the country is run prudently without taking the piss! People seem to think that government is a magic money tree. When in reality it is a parasite that is killing its host!
Well-produced, well-narrated, accurate, informative and interesting. An object lesson in YT videos. Great job, thanks.
Thank you very much! Hopefully someone upstairs at TH-cam sees your comment!
Wow, top quality. Keep pushing, you will get there :)
Thanks! Really appreciate the support.
Excellent video 👌
Thank you 👍
Brilliantly explained, nice graphics. Thank you
Thanks!
your video is so well made, its only a matter of time before your channel blows up!
This video is so well done. Great job!
Thank you so much!
@@BehindDesigns your welcome
Subscribed, really high quality content here!
Thanks!
Very very good video. I'm surprised that bigger tubers like Tom Scott haven't already covered this
Well done sir! You've earned this man's subscription.
Awesome, thank you!
You are great! The quality of your videos is insane and you deserve WAY more subs!
I appreciate you making these sorts of informative videos and the large effort involved, and I appreciate you getting most of the history and facts correct - but I feel compelled to point out that this video has some significant inaccuracies and exaggerations. As others have pointed out, your statement (at 12:25) that "nuclear power, by far, is the safest electric generation method in the world today" is contentious at least, and with the advent of utility scale solar (as opposed to rooftop solar) simply not true - even if you ignore the potential 'worst case' consequences of any incident. Some other (admittedly less important) errors are at 2.34 (fission does not work that way), at 6.16 (the reactor needed more neutron flux, not more heat, although more neutron flux does produce more heat) and at 8.16 (hydrogen bombs generally do not need more plutonium than fission-only bombs since the use of a plutonium 'spark plug' in the second stage is generally offset by being able to have a smaller core in the first stage ['trigger']). Also, a careful read of the history (e.g. at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_Piles ) indicates your comments about safety concerns being ignored and (at 9.18) that the plant was 'operating far beyond any acceptable safety protocols' are exaggerations/hyperbole - it is more accurate to say that engineers were under production pressure and 'learning as they went along' rather than knowingly ignoring safety protocols. I can also find no evidence for your claim at 9.22 that Christopher Hinton 'resigned in protest'. However, I do want to say that the overall thrust of the video was informative and made it clear that 'Cockcroft's folly' filters were very important in avoiding a much more dangerous outcome of the fire. Other good videos on this subject are th-cam.com/video/GsNucRdayX0/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=Stickytape%27n%27rust and at th-cam.com/video/j5wZoswSNwc/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=PlainlyDifficult
Thank you for your feedback, and the effort in your reply. As you say a few people have commented about my closing statement. I did reply to first person who picked me up on that explaining my point and how I reached that conclusion. I shall write out a proper reply to your comment later when I have some more time and pin it to the top. Thanks for watching and contributing it’s very much appreciated!
Only 3k subs hmmm. You deserve more recognition, good stuff
This video is way too high quality for the amount of subs you have and you deserve way more
Fantastic video
That was brilliantly done. Fascinating
Great video! Thanks for the hard work you have put into it hopefully you get more visibility in the future!
Much appreciated!
Glad to be your 172 subscriber mate! Keep up the amazing work!
Me too! Thanks for the support
Precise and paced superbly… Just subbed.
The incident was down to unknown nature, not pressure of the war effort.
See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigner_effect
Good stuff thanks!
Thank you!
Thank you Cockroft for making sure the beautiful place I grew up in was habitable by the time I was born.
You did a great job with this presentation. I have watched several videos on this topic, and yours is the best when it comes to explanation of the purpose of this particular reactor and what went wrong.
Yet no mention was made of the fact it was an unknown second level of Wigner energy that was the cause of the fire.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigner_effect
Oh Dear! At 2:02 appears a Cube with Pu244 written on it. But for a nuclear weapon you need Pu239 in at least 90 % purity (better 93% in a quality called "Super grade"). With Pu244 - which cannot be produced in a nucelar reactor btw - it is not possible to initiate a meaningful chain reaction. Pu244 has such a high rate of spontaneous fission (by nine orders of magnitude greater compared to Pu239) that every bomb built of Pu244 would suffer a far to early ingnition.
Thanks for pointing this out. You have a very keen eye, and clearly great expertise in the subject. Also, thanks for taking the time to explain why it is a mistake, I am no nuclear scientist but now I know a little more about the subject.
Well, i definitely wasn't expecting to hear that nuclear power is safe after all the accidents that almost wiped out entire continents...
Last time I checked, the Chernobyl disaster didn't wipe out Europe, nor did the Fukushima-daichii accident desteoy Asia.
the reactor here was not designed for power production, it was a consumer of power.. its only purpose was that of making bomb material. It was also a protype beeing operated by people who felt they could not say "no" to the govenment. The reality is that there are designs for making Nuclear Power plants out there that in theroy fail safe, are more efficent at producing power, but dont produce weapons material. I wounder why the reserch has not been done on those to finish up the designs?
Many remember the Windscale, out of those who do, I wonder how many realised it wasn't ever a power station, just a bomb factory, when you cut the to the chase. For that matter, although the close by Calder Hall was hailed and proclaimed to be the beginning of electricity 'too cheap to meter' knew it's true purpose, and and how (according to sources at Windscale) it often took *from* the National Grid, rather than putting anything useful back in...
Also, excellent & concise video.
This should have millions of views.
Fantastic video. Keep up the great work
Content worth subscribing for! Glad the algorithm finally made it here
Great video! Something about air-cooled reactors just seems wrong
Thanks! i agree, i spent the whole time researching the video shaking my head. Every element of the power station was built by the lowest bidder!
Windscale reactors were not a power station, the later and nearby calder hall was
Or even - as shown in this video - two things in the Windscale design: (a) air will support combustion allowing the core to catch fire and (b) unfiltered air cooling could allow the escape of radioactive contamination to the surrounding environment. Subsequent designs of British civil thermal reactors were cooled by CO2 gas in closed loops.
It's weird that I've never heard of this and I live in Britain
I don't think it is very wide spread knowledge. We should be taught about it though
It's an embarrassment on the governments behalf, they don't want you to know about it
Thank god for Sir John Cockroft, he saved the UK.
Gained a sub, youre on thoughy2's level of video quality needs more views hope the algorithm gods come along and make things fight
Thank you so much such a good video! Keep going1
Cheers Buddy, thanks for the support
outstanding work and research, well done
Cheers buddy! Glad you enjoyed it.
This one is very good. Good work!
Thanks, I put a lot of work into it so apreciate the positive comment!
Behind Designs clearly your channel and this video deserve way more views and subscribers...
Thanks, I'm still new to the game, but if I keep concentrating on delivering top quality content i'm sure they will come! Quality over quantity!
Great video!
Thanks!
I was about 200 metres away from the old pile today. It’s slowly being taken down
New Subscriber.
Excellent work.
Thanks for the support, welcome aboard!
This was a good watch enjoyed it 😁
The approach at the time was very basic, and scientists hadn't much of influence over the precautions used. Thankfully the exhaust was filtered, but to this day, I wonder why the graphite block hadn't any embedded temperature monitoring at each channel.
This was a super interesting video off the nuclear disaster that was Chernobyl. I didn't realise how close we came to fallout and proves that nothing should be considered 'folly', when peoples lives are at risk. A well put together account!
This is an great video explaining what happened. :)
Glad you liked it!
I saw Cockcroft's follies & heard this story then. The man who told me this story also told me that there is no way of removing the filters because of the contamination risk, it was also pointed out to me that these filters will be dangerous for far longer than the structure will last. So hold your speech about nuck being the safest way to produce electricity, because the mess from the 50s has yet to be safely delt with yet.
This is a great video, would love to see one on Fukushima too!
Great video. Much more informative than the Geographics one.
Thanks, glad you liked it!
Coming from someone Who lives in Yorkshire im grateful This guy stopped It when he did
The footage at 7:11 does not show Operation Hurricane, the first british nuclear test of 1952, but the test shot Baker of the US Operation Crossroads of 1946.
Fascinating and well presented.
Cheers!
Very well presented, and easy to understand. Amazing work!
You should upload more videos of such incidents. They could easily be a success =)
I have been to Windscale and seen the buildings there about 1980 and was aware of an accident but not the details which seems to have been suppressed in the UK, probably due to post-war national embarrassment. I have heard charges of elevated radioactivity around Sellafield. Hinton and Cockroft should be considered national heroes, they saved the entire country not to mention extended Continental Europe.
It would be good to see an alternitive history video on what would have happened if the filters handn't been installed.
Didn't expect this channel to have 3k subs but I'm sure within a year that will go up 100 fold
I hope your prediction comes true! Thanks for watching!
Good Video, have a comment for the algorithm. Hope to see your channel grow
You are amazing! You have earned my sub!
Superb video, thank you.
It might be interesting to note that this entry came to light after watching something else about the history of the Chernobyl disaster today. Don’t know why that turned up, but after viewing it, loads of related ones were presented by YT - yours is one of them!
The related history is the development of the Calder Hall power station/plutonium plant which was commissioned a few years later, with the ‘Magnox’ reactor design. I can vaguely remember watching an old publicity film about it (maybe an old BFI one), which included some narrative along the lines of “the electricity output is so cheap you don’t need to meter it….” Maybe feeding into the grid was a side effect, cash flow wise, at first.
I can only echo other comments and congratulate you on an excellent video.