<center><h3>BUILDING THE BOMB</h3></center>
''It’s 1947.'' Two years ago, the USA dropped the atomic bomb on Japan.
<img src="image/hiroshima.png">
British scientists had played a major part in developing atomic science, but now ''America is refusing to share her nuclear secrets with other nations.'' So much for the ‘special relationship’.
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[To secure her place on the world stage, ''Britain must develop its own atomic bomb'' – and we must do it quickly.
Three men – William Penney, John Cockcroft and Christopher Hinton – known as the three Bold Bad Barons – are given the job of building the Bomb.
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[''You’ve recently graduated in physics and you’re very grateful to be given a job helping them.'' You’re off to the village of Seascale, on the northwest coast, to start the first step – producing plutonium.
Timing is tight – a bomb has to be made by 1952, since that’s when we thinks the Russians will have it – but that’s only five years away!
[[<img src="image/e.gif">->produce plutonium]]]]Your first problem is that when you produce plutonium, you also produce an awful lot of very destructive heat – how can you keep the temperature in the reactor under control? In the US, they apparently use water to cool the reactors. Should we copy them?
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[<table><tbody><tr><td class="edit-25"><img src="image/civil.png" width="100"></td><td class="edit-75"><div class="sb-left">There is nowhere in Britain isolated enough to risk cooling the reactor with water. If there was a meltdown because of an issue with the water supply, we would destroy the north of England. We should use our technical knowhow to find a reliable solution.</div></td></tr></tbody></table>
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[<table><tbody><tr><td class="edit-25"><img src="image/scientist.png" width="100"></td><td class="edit-75"><div class="sb-left">It won’t look pretty but it will be functional. We can install huge fans and tall towers to cool the reactor. It will be reliable and just rely on electricity rather than nature. We are world leading experts in industrial ventilation.</div></td></tr></tbody></table>
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[<table><tbody><tr><td class="edit-25"><img src="image/phys.png" width="100"></td><td class="edit-75"><div class="sb-left">If the water supply was to fail there would be an unstoppable melt down of the reactor. It would be a disaster of unprecedented scale. The cooling of the reactor has to be reliable and constant.</div></td></tr></tbody></table>
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[There’s no real choice here – you’ll have use huge external fans to drive cool air over and through the reactors, forcing the heat up two massive towers, and blowing it out over the Irish Sea, well away from any human communities.
[[<img src="image/e.gif">->terence for tea]]]]]]Over tea one day, your colleague Terence Price, starts to wonder what would happen if the reactor ever had a problem.
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[<table><tbody><tr><td class="edit-25"><img src="image/tp.png" width="100"></td><td class="edit-75"><div class="sb-left">If there was a sudden release of radiation, then those fans are going to blow radioactive material right up through the towers and into the open air. Might upset people a bit.</div></td></tr></tbody></table>
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[<table><body><tr><td class="edit-75"><div class="sb-right">Hmm. We probably should have included filters to catch any harmful releases of radiation when be built the towers, shouldn’t we?</div></td><td class="edit-25"></td></tr></tbody></table>
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[<table><tbody><tr><td class="edit-25"><img src="image/tp.png" width="100"></td><td class="edit-75"><div class="sb-left">Well, they’re not quite finished yet. We could add them?</div></td></tr></tbody></table>
[[<img src="image/e.gif">->install the filters]]]]]<img src="image/windscale-build.png">
You need to decide whether or not to install the filters before the building work can progress any further. You can seek as much advice as you wish before making a decision.
(link: 'Consult the Civil Service')[<table><tbody><tr><td class="edit-25"><img src="image/civil.png" width="100"></td><td class="edit-75"><div class="sb-left">Filters? Whatever for? Are you questioning great British engineering know how? ''This will cost millions of pounds! Don’t you know we still have rationing?'' The people won’t stand for it! I ‘m sure we don’t need such silly things.</div></td></tr></tbody></table>]
(link: 'Consult the Engineering Department')[<table><tbody><tr><td class="edit-25"><img src="image/scientist.png" width="100"></td><td class="edit-75"><div class="sb-left">Now come on. We may be the best ventilation engineers in the world, but you just can’t filter two and half tonnes of air per second. It’s simply impossible! ''It will waste lots of money and put the build back years!''</div></td></tr></tbody></table>]
(link: 'Consult the Science Division')[<table><tbody><tr><td class="edit-25"><img src="image/phys.png" width="100"></td><td class="edit-75"><div class="sb-left">This is safety critical. ''Regardless of the technical challenges or the costs, we have to do this safely.'' That means ensuring that no radiation can escape the reactor building whatever happens.</div></td></tr></tbody></table>]
''What do you choose to do?''
[[Install the filters, better safe than sorry]]
[[Don't install the filters, too expensive and time consuming]]
(set: $continue to 0)(set: $install to "true")
(if: $continue is 0)[(goto: "continue")](set: $not_installed to "true")
(if: $continue is 0)[(goto: "continue")] There won’t be a problem as long as you can keep control of the temperature in the reactor core. This is, essentially, a block of graphite through which many holes have been drilled – these holes will be filled with the uranium cartridges that will react with each other to produce the plutonium.
<img src="image/core.png">
The graphite separates the cartridges, which are also covered in aluminium to absorb and disperse the heat as they pass through the reactor core and – eventually - fall into the cooling pool of water at its base.
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[The trouble is, Windscale simply isn’t producing enough plutonium – and there are rumors that America has gone beyond the atomic bomb and is now testing the immensely more powerful hydrogen bomb. We’re falling behind again! The Prime Minister – Winston Churchill – demands that you pull out all the stops to make him a bomb.
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[You can speed up Windscale’s production of plutonium by taking away some of the aluminium casing that surrounds the uranium cartridges. Should you do that? It’s one of the key safety elements within the plant’s design…
(link: 'Consult the Civil Service')[<table><tbody><tr><td class="edit-25"><img src="image/civil.png" width="100"></td><td class="edit-75"><div class="sb-left">We have to have the Bomb, now! ''You should do whatever it takes to deliver these materials as quickly as possible!'' There may be a knighthood in it!</div></td></tr></tbody></table>]
(link: 'Consult a Physicist')[<table><tbody><tr><td class="edit-25"><img src="image/phys.png" width="100"></td><td class="edit-75"><div class="sb-left">''This is not to be recommended.'' Not only is it unsafe but we are not sure what will happen. But we’ll be interested to see your results.</div></td></tr></tbody></table>]
(link: 'Consult the Engineering Department')[<table><tbody><tr><td class="edit-25"><img src="image/scientist.png" width="100"></td><td class="edit-75"><div class="sb-left">I can shave off around 1/6 of an inch from each of half a million aluminium fins. It might speed things up just enough?</div></td></tr></tbody></table>]
The choice is yours. Do you choose to:
[[Refuse, it isn't safe]]
[[We'll try. National security is at stake]]]]<center>YOUR SERVICES ARE NO LONGER REQUIRED.
YOUR CONTRACT HAS BEEN TERMINATED WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT
[[Try again->continue]] ''August 1952.'' Windscale has managed to produce enough plutonium (132 grams, as big as a 50p piece) to build a bomb. We’re finally an atomic power.
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[Hang on. ''The Americans have got their hydrogen bomb working – so we need one too.'' And to make one, we need a lot more plutonium.
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[The thing is, ''the Windscale reactor is starting to behave very oddly''
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[Periodically, but unpredictably, ''parts of the reactor cores are getting dangerously hot.'' You are managing the problem using something called a ‘Wigner’ release (heating the entire core to enable the stored energy to be released in a controlled fashion) – but you don’t really know why this works.
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[No-one has run a plant like this before, and problems are being solved by trial and error. This makes you rather nervous. You are, after all, in charge of the equivalent of an atomic bomb.
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[Public opinion about nuclear power is also shifting in a way that makes you uncomfortable. Five years ago, you were heroes, the potential saviours of British pride and power. Now, people are starting to protest against nuclear weaponry – and are starting to talk about mad scientists playing God.
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[You’re also worried about strange radiation readings around Windscale – they’re higher than they ought to be – and your wife and young baby live in the local village. There seem to be a lot of broken cartridges that are falling outside the cooling pool. Could they be part of the problem?
You see that you have a choice to make. Do you decide to:
[[Try to increase public support for nuclear research?]]
[[Try to find out what's causing the increase in radiation?]]
[[Push for a more thorough investigation->Try again]]
[[Send someone to push the broken cartridges back into the pool]]]]]]]]New story ''GOING NUCLEAR'' available soon.
[[Make a different choice->We'll try. National security is at stake]] <center>YOUR SERVICES ARE NO LONGER REQUIRED.
YOUR CONTRACT HAS BEEN TERMINATED WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT
[[Try again->We'll try. National security is at stake]] But all the time, the pressure is to increase production. To succeed, ''Windscale must increase production by around 500%.'' You could do this if you use new cartridges, with enriched uranium and lithium magnesium (and and less protective aluminium) Do you:
[[Refuse]]
[[Agree]]<center>YOUR SERVICES ARE NO LONGER REQUIRED.
YOUR CONTRACT HAS BEEN TERMINATED WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT
[[Try again->Send someone to push the broken cartridges back into the pool]] Despite your best efforts, you still haven’t managed to make a hydrogen bomb -but you have made a big enough atomic bomb to at least fool the British public when it’s tested in June 1957. The pressure is still on you, though – and then, three months later, the Russians successfully launch Sputnik, the world’s first orbiting satellite. This is a massive threat to both American and British national security. Can Harold Macmillan use it to persuade the Americans to accept us as their obvious – and equal! – ally against the Soviets?
<img src="image/blue.png">
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[On ''October 7, things had start to go wrong'' at Windscale….
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[The core of reactor 1 is heating up.
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[You apply a controlled release, which doesn’t work.
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[You ask permission to do it again – it seems to work – but two days later, the temperature in the core is rising again.
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[From the outside, you can see that the chimneys are emitting smoke.
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[The worst has happened.
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[The core is on fire.
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[There is no emergency plan for this: no-one really thought it could happen. There are no plans to evacuate the local population.
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[You have to get control of the situation.
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[You have to fight the fire.
(link: '<img src="image/e-small.gif">')[How are you going to fight the fire?
[[Get the uranium cartridges out of the core?]]
[[Put it out with water?]]
[[Shut down the air supply?]]]]]]]]]]]]]<img src="image/windscale-build.png">
There’s nothing to push them with! Hang on, there’s some scaffolding left over from the building work – push them through with that. You conscript volunteers to get into radiation suits and work in the deadly core – but they can’t go fast enough.
That won't work, you'll have to think of something else. Do you want to try to:
[[Put it out with water?]]
[[Shut down the air supply?]] <table><tbody><tr><td class="edit-25"><img src="image/phys.png" width="100"></td><td class="edit-75"><div class="sb-left">The plant is a (mostly) controlled atomic bomb. Water won’t work!</div></td></tr></tbody></table>
You'll just have to think of something else. Do you want to try to:
[[Get the uranium cartridges out of the core?]]
[[Shut down the air supply?]] You ask permission to turn the fans off and just let the fire burn itself out.
<img src="image/widscale-fire.png">
Thank God. The fire is out.
The Atomic Energy Authority announces to the public that the plant has overheated, but that water had been used to cool things down. There has been some release of radioactivity, but the wind is blowing to the west so it is streaming out over the sea.
There is no need to worry, they tell the British public.The trouble is that this is not true.
(if: $install is "true")[(link: '<img src="image/e.gif">')[(goto: "installed")]]\
(else-if: $not_installed is "true")[(link: '<img src="image/e.gif">')[(goto: "notinstalled")]]The plant did actually caught fire, using water didn’t work, and the wind is actually blowing inland. ''Radioactivity is being deposited over an area of 300 sq miles, covering much of the Lake District and Cumbria.'' Thank goodness you insisted that those filters – Cockcroft’s Follies – were installed, since they’ve caught around 95% of the radiation. A lot of milk has to be poured away, and thyroid activity in children has to be monitored – but it could all have been so much worse.
As far as Macmillan is concerned, however, the timing couldn’t have been worse – just as he’s pushing for a nuclear based alliance between America and Britain, Britain suffers the world’s worst ever nuclear disaster.
The enquiry, chaired by William Penney, is a cover-up, blaming the fire on a series of individual errors of judgement. You are devastated.
<a href="https://york.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_a4V4Y65CnWPY1wx"><img src="image/e.gif"></a>The plant did actually catch fire, using water didn’t work, and the wind is actually blowing inland. ''Radioactivity is being deposited over an area of 300 sq miles, covering much of the Lake District and Cumbria.'' If ONLY you’d insisted on installing those filters! They would have caught up to 95% of the radiation.
As it stands, large areas of the North West and North Wales are contaminated for the next generations. No food can be grown, no-one can safely live there. Lancaster, Preston, Carlisle – even Liverpool and Newcastle are badly affected, as people try to escape the areas of most harm.
Nuclear physicists are not popular people in Britain, anymore. Even if the contamination stabilises, you’ll need to find a new job... Or emigrate.
<a href="https://york.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8ivqe4yHLL5C84t"><img src="image/e.gif"></a><center>YOUR SERVICES ARE NO LONGER REQUIRED.
YOUR CONTRACT HAS BEEN TERMINATED WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT
[[Try again->We'll try. National security is at stake]]