Britain's Nuclear Secrets: Inside Sellafield


Britain's Nuclear Secrets: Inside Sellafield

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Lying on the remote northwest coast of England

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is one of the most secret places in the country.

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65 years ago, it helped make Britain a world superpower.

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And within its walls is material that could devastate life on

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this island and beyond.

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This is Sellafield.

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Costing around £2 billion a year, it's the most controversial

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nuclear facility in Britain.

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I'm a nuclear physicist

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and I've been fascinated by this place for much of my career.

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I've heard the stories about the extraordinary experiments,

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the jaw-dropping machinery and the incredibly costly science.

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And I've also heard about the problems,

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the risks and controversies, the terrifying accidents.

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I got a phone call, "Pile one's on fire."

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I said, "Good God, you don't mean the core?"

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He said, "Yes."

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Now, they're giving me and the television cameras

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access to discover the real story.

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We're going inside Sellafield.

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We've been given access

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to some of Britain's most secret buildings.

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It's eerie being so close to something so deadly.

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That's the first time it's been touched in, probably, 51 years.

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I'll be encountering some of the most dangerous substances on Earth.

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It's your dose for the year.

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-That's your dose for the year in one...

-Yeah.

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OK, so we should go out of the way now.

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I'll reveal the nature of radioactivity.

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And I'll even attempt to split the atom.

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I believe that Sellafield tells a unique and important story...

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..because it reveals Britain's attempts past, present

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and future, to harness the almost limitless power of the atom.

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It's why I think the tale of this place is one of the most

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important scientific stories of our age.

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I'm just about to go through the main gate and into Sellafield.

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I have to say, I'm pretty excited, but also a bit nervous, because

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I've had to go through some very tight security procedures to get in.

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Over the last few months, all my personal details have been

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heavily vetted by the security services.

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And, of course, every piece of filming equipment has had to be

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very, very carefully checked and re-checked.

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Now, finally, we're ready to be let in.

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This intense security is a reminder of how potentially dangerous

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what's stored here actually is.

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In the wrong hands, much of this material would be deadly.

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From hereon in, we're operating under strict national

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security procedures, and some of the images on this film

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are going to have to be blurred out.

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We can't show building numbers or routes or security cameras.

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I can already see experimental nuclear reactors, power stations

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and nuclear storage facilities.

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There are over 1,000 separate buildings.

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In fact, this site covers over six square kilometres.

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It's the most complex nuclear facility in Europe.

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One of the first impressions I get is that this place is buzzing

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with activity.

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Radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel arrives here nearly every day.

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In case of an incident, there are regular drills by the security

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and emergency services.

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And all with good reason, because some of the most dangerous

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buildings in the world are here at Sellafield.

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I'm going to start by visiting one, because in here are clues

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that reveal the story of Britain's entry into the nuclear age.

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This is one of the infamous Sellafield storage ponds.

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The size of eight Olympic swimming pools, it's the largest open

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nuclear pond in the world.

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For about a decade, between the mid 1950s and 1960s, this five metre

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deep water was used to store a huge range of nuclear waste,

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all sorts of experimental nuclear fuels, highly radioactive

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isotopes, hazardous irradiated debris and contaminated leftovers.

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And, now, Sellafield is starting to clear these so-called legacy ponds.

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I think go for this one.

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The hundreds of tonnes of waste down here are a physical record of

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the history of Sellafield.

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And hidden deep within this debris is evidence of the top secret

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project that started it all.

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Britain's race to build an atom bomb.

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In 1945, the world looked on in awe as these terrifying new

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nuclear weapons were unleashed on Japan.

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Their extraordinary power came from inside the atom.

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And it was a German chemist, called Otto Hahn, who first stumbled

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across the power inside an atom almost by accident.

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In 1938, in his Berlin laboratory, Hahn was investigating

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a metal called uranium.

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This tiny disc is a sliver of uranium.

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This is what the fuss is all about.

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Now, uranium is the heaviest naturally occurring element.

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Its nucleus is made up of over 200 particles, protons and neutrons.

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Otto Hahn was fascinated by uranium and wondered what happens

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when a single neutron hits the nucleus.

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But what he found when he did his experiments...

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made no sense at all.

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Now, I know this is a cliche and I've said it many times before,

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but this single experiment really did change the world for ever.

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Without realising it, Otto Hahn had taken the first step

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into the nuclear age.

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For what we think is the very first time on television,

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we're going to re-create a version of the actual experiment carried

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out by Otto Hahn three-quarters of a century ago.

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This accelerator will produce a beam of particles containing neutrons.

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And I can drop this piece of uranium right in its path, just down here.

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Now, turn on the beam.

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Just like in Hahn's experiment, my uranium is being bombarded

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with neutrons.

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One hour later and it's fizzing with radioactivity.

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Now, with uranium, gamma ray spectroscopy always shows

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these three energy peaks.

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This is the unique signature of uranium.

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But after bathing our sample in neutrons for an hour,

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we get a different picture.

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Have a look at this.

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Now, in yellow, we get the same three uranium peaks

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but we also get a new one.

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Because this peak is the characteristic signature,

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not of uranium, but of barium.

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But the nucleus of a barium atom is about half the weight of uranium.

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So, how can a single neutron turn heavy uranium into light barium?

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The only possible explanation is if the nucleus of uranium

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is splitting into two roughly equal fragments.

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What we've done in this lab today is exactly what Otto Hahn

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did in his experiment.

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We've split the atom.

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I believe Otto Hahn's accidental discovery in 1938

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marks the beginning of the nuclear age.

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Because his experiment showed that something even more

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extraordinary had happened.

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The two fragments produced by the uranium nucleus weren't just

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falling apart, they were exploding apart with enough

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energy from a single nucleus to move a grain of sand.

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Now, that may not sound like much,

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but imagine how much energy could be produced

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if every one of the billion trillion uranium nuclei split in our sample.

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Just think what might be possible if this experiment could be scaled up.

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Within just four weeks of Hahn splitting the first uranium atom,

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a scientist in Washington drew a diagram on a blackboard.

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The diagram was of a new kind of weapon,

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and the scientist was Robert Oppenheimer.

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The creator of the atomic bomb.

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Six years later, his nuclear weapons brought the Second World War

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to an abrupt end.

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So where did that leave Britain?

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If it was to be a superpower alongside America and Russia,

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it needed a bomb of its own.

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So, far away from prying eyes, deep in the Cumbrian countryside, near a

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hamlet called Sellafield, plans were afoot to join the nuclear arms race.

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In fact, the government first built all of this as a top secret

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military research facility.

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It was called Windscale.

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And its aim - to make plutonium for a British atom bomb.

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In here is the prize the Windscale scientists were after.

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This is plutonium.

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Just like uranium, when atoms of plutonium split or fission,

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they release a massive burst of energy.

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But there's a catch.

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Virtually the only way plutonium can be made is out of uranium

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in a nuclear reactor.

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So, for four straight years, 5,000 people toiled day and night

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to build one.

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The science was so new and experimental that the plans

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would change almost daily.

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But despite this, in October 1950, just ten days behind schedule...

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..the Windscale nuclear reactor was finished.

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This is the heart of it.

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Otto Hahn's experiment on a massive scale.

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This is the reactor itself.

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Over 20 metres high...

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weighing over 2,000 tonnes...

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containing over 70,000 uranium rods.

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Inside this reactor, the scientists hoped to turn uranium into

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plutonium for their bomb.

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But to do that, they needed to trigger a chain reaction.

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Inside this box are 120 primed mouse traps,

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each one with a ping-pong ball on top.

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Let's see what happens when I drop this single ball in the top.

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One ball triggers more and more mouse traps.

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This is a chain reaction.

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The Windscale scientists believed their reactor would trigger

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a chain reaction, that, in the process,

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would turn some of the uranium into plutonium.

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As each uranium atom splits, it also releases neutrons.

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And just like the ping-pong balls triggering the mouse traps,

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these neutrons could split new uranium atoms.

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So, if they got it right, the uranium would trigger a massive

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nuclear chain reaction, producing enough neutrons to turn some

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of the uranium into plutonium for the bomb.

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Very nice. That's the genius of the chain reaction.

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That was the theory, but nobody knew for sure if it would actually work.

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The development work that should have been done was all cut

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short by the extreme political and military pressure on them,

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the very, very tight deadlines they were given.

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You did feel that we were in the vanguard of being something

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really new.

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Everybody was on a learning curve there, really, from, you know,

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ground floor to top level.

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In October 1950, the Windscale reactor was finally started up.

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This was the moment of truth.

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Inside the reactor, the chain reaction began.

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It worked.

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In the space of just four years, we'd gone from a basic

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understanding of nuclear fission to a working nuclear reactor.

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The uranium started to turn into plutonium.

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But, frustratingly, the process was agonisingly slow.

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It took six months in the reactor until there was enough

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plutonium to begin to extract it.

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I broke down the reaction vessel myself, scrambled around

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amongst calcium fluoride, to see if I could find anything.

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And there I found a piece of plutonium about this size, about

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the size of a 50p piece, 132 grams, and that was our very first piece.

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But by 1952, they'd managed to get enough to make

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the first British nuclear weapon.

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And it was detonated in Montebello Island

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in Western Australia.

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That lethal cloud, rising above Montebello,

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marks the achievement of British science and industry.

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At last, Britain had entered the nuclear age.

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These weapons had revealed just how much energy there was

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within the atom.

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But for the nuclear physicists there was another realisation,

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that the same science that had split the atom

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and produced the bomb could also be used for the betterment of humanity.

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That it also had the potential to produce almost limitless

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cheap energy, energy to power our cities, light our homes

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and forge a secure future for everyone.

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Because as well as producing plutonium, the reactor produced

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heat, and that heat could be harnessed.

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The dream was that the power of the atom would come out of the

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shadow of the bomb and into our living rooms...

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..as electricity.

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And, once again, Sellafield was at the very heart of the story.

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Here, in 1952, work began on an ambitious experiment in power

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generation that would shape the modern world.

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It was called Calder Hall.

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And when it opened in 1956, the nation celebrated.

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This new power which has proved itself to be such a terrifying

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weapon of destruction is harnessed for the first time,

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for the common good of our community.

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This is the control room of Calder Hall Reactor One,

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the nerve centre

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of the world's first commercial nuclear power station.

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On the 27th of August, 1956,

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heat generated from a nuclear chain reaction

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was used to turn water into steam,

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which drove a turbine that generated electricity.

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That electricity now poured into the National Grid.

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Britain had become a nuclear-powered nation.

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Within ten years,

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eight new nuclear power stations were turned on across the country.

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Puffed up with scientific zeal,

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politicians announced that nuclear power was so cheap

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they wouldn't even bother metering the electricity.

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At its peak, Calder Hall provided enough electricity

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to supply hundreds of thousands of homes.

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Today, I'm being allowed inside Calder Hall.

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I'm about to see something that as a theoretical physicist

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I've only ever imagined,

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the core of a nuclear reactor, where the uranium rods actually sit.

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Well, I'm at the heart of Calder Hall Reactor One

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and down here...

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beneath my feet is the core itself.

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'Just ten metres below me are thousands of radioactive

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'uranium fuel rods.'

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SIREN

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'I'm with the inspection team

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'that's going to check the state of these fuel rods,

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'and that means opening up the core itself.'

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So, what exactly will we see today?

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-When I take the blank off...

-Right.

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..and then we'll take the shield plug out,

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put a spiral camera down and you'll be able to see into the reactor.

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What sort of things do you hope to see with the camera?

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Top of the fuel elements.

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To make sure that there's no nasties in there.

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That's right, yeah, there's no obstructions or anything like that.

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I'm, I'm feeling the,

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the usual combination of excitement and nervousness.

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Right, so we should get out of the way now?

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-Er, yes!

-Right, OK!

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This is the protective shield plug

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that sits just above the core itself.

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This reactor was shut down 12 years ago,

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but despite that the core is still hot,

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with radioactivity, which they monitor closely.

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DISTANT SIREN

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-When the plug came out...

-INDISTINCT

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..gamma, beta-gamma.

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That's something like, I guess how much,

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a dose you'd get from a C-Scan or something like that.

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-That's your dose for the year.

-Your dose for a year in one...

-Yeah.

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-OK, right.

-Yeah.

-So, still...

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-Still a...

-..full of radioactivity there.

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SIREN CONTINUES

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The team also regularly monitors the physical state of the rods.

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'And the only way to do that is by remote control camera.'

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This is us going down through standpipe,

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heading down into the reactor floor.

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-It's a long way down.

-Yeah, it's 20 feet.

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DISTANT SIREN

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OK, Robert, can we stop there?

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Whoa. Here are the channels.

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-Those are the channels within the standpipe.

-Yeah.

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And each channel, that's where the fuel rods...

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That's where the fuel rod is

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and there's either five or six fuel elements in each channel.

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The flashes on the picture

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are the effects of the powerful radiation on the camera.

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Just here,

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that's the glimmer of the top of a fuel element you can just see there.

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Just about see them shining.

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Eventually, all these uranium fuel rods will be removed.

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Not many people get to look down into a reactor core

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staring at a fuel rod.

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BIRDS TWEET

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Calder Hall has, without doubt, been a scientific success story.

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It proved that nuclear power really worked.

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But just over a year after it opened,

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this age of optimism came to an end.

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The nuclear forces that Otto Hahn unleashed back in 1938

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had unexpected consequences.

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Inside the Pandora's box of the atomic nucleus,

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along with the hope of unlimited energy,

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-was a dark secret...

-MUFFLED SIREN

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..that these forces were hard to control.

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And this became terrifyingly apparent

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in the Windscale fire of 1957.

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Monday, 7th of October,

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the Windscale reactor was shut down for routine maintenance.

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But then, something strange happened.

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Instead of cooling, the temperature inside started to rise.

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My grandfather was part of the team working here. Um...

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the evidence and the information that was being relayed to them

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indicated something was amiss.

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I walked up on to the top of the pile

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and I saw a monitor up there

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and he said, "It's too hot. There's too much radiation."

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Eventually, someone peered into the core itself

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from a hole at the top of the reactor just here.

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They saw something no-one had ever considered possible.

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The core itself was on fire.

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I got a phone call from the General Manager.

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He said, "Tom, Pile One's on fire."

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I said, "Good God, you don't mean the core?"

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He said, "Yes."

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And we didn't know what we could do to stop it.

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DISTANT ALARM

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The fire raged for three days.

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Workers risked terrible radiation burns trying to push the fuel

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out of the reactor, using anything they could lay their hands on.

0:26:330:26:37

But despite this, the fire continued to burn.

0:26:370:26:41

So, they came up with a new plan...

0:26:410:26:44

they'd flood the core

0:26:440:26:46

and turn off the cooling fans.

0:26:460:26:50

It was a huge risk.

0:26:500:26:52

If you look at the size of the reactor face,

0:26:520:26:54

each one of these tubes has fuel in,

0:26:540:26:56

so the risk of setting them all on fire is immense.

0:26:560:27:00

If they were wrong, the whole reactor might explode.

0:27:000:27:06

You've got this blazing inferno

0:27:060:27:07

with these flames belting out and hitting the back wall.

0:27:070:27:11

Mankind had not faced anything like this ever before.

0:27:110:27:15

-ALARM

-They had no alternative.

0:27:150:27:19

They hit the switch.

0:27:190:27:21

The air goes off and psst...

0:27:240:27:27

just like that.

0:27:270:27:28

Absolutely incredible.

0:27:280:27:30

The fire was finally out.

0:27:320:27:34

But a new danger became apparent.

0:27:360:27:39

Flames had melted the casing surrounding the nuclear fuel

0:27:420:27:46

and some of the elements had burst.

0:27:460:27:48

Radioactive material escaped out and up the chimney.

0:27:480:27:52

A cloud of smoke began to fall over the area.

0:27:520:27:57

As the wind blew it eastwards, it seemed catastrophic.

0:27:570:28:02

Thousands of square miles might be contaminated.

0:28:020:28:05

Hundreds of people could die.

0:28:050:28:07

But it didn't happen.

0:28:100:28:13

Thanks to one man.

0:28:130:28:14

I'm now in the lift, climbing the 120-metre high chimney

0:28:260:28:31

that was built to release the air

0:28:310:28:33

used to cool the nuclear pile down below.

0:28:330:28:36

Now, at the time, no-one imagined that releasing this air

0:28:360:28:39

out into the atmosphere was in any way hazardous.

0:28:390:28:42

Well, almost no-one.

0:28:420:28:44

Seven years earlier, the Windscale Project had been masterminded

0:28:500:28:54

by a physicist called John Cockcroft.

0:28:540:28:57

He'd made his name in 1932,

0:28:570:29:00

when he'd knocked together the world's first atomic accelerator.

0:29:000:29:03

It was made out of packing cases and tinfoil

0:29:030:29:06

and eventually won him the Nobel Prize.

0:29:060:29:08

After this chimney was built, Cockcroft had a moment of doubt.

0:29:150:29:19

What if the cooling air became contaminated?

0:29:190:29:22

Now, no-one on his team believed this could actually happen,

0:29:220:29:26

but Cockcroft was intransigent.

0:29:260:29:28

He demanded that his engineers build a filter here

0:29:280:29:31

at the very top of the 120-metre chimney.

0:29:310:29:35

They laughingly called his idea "Cockcroft's Folly."

0:29:350:29:39

Of course, he got his way.

0:29:400:29:42

You can still see where the filters were slotted in

0:29:420:29:45

across the top of the open chimney.

0:29:450:29:48

As the cloud from the fire below belched out of the chimney,

0:29:490:29:53

Cockcroft's Folly trapped almost all of the radioactivity.

0:29:530:29:58

Designed by a maverick genius, built on a whim, this basic filter

0:30:020:30:07

saved the North West and beyond from a terrible fate.

0:30:070:30:10

This was the world's first nuclear accident

0:30:190:30:22

and it served as a powerful warning that harvesting nuclear energy

0:30:220:30:27

could lead to some unexpected and potentially lethal consequences.

0:30:270:30:33

In the decades that have followed,

0:30:330:30:35

there have been other more serious incidents at nuclear plants

0:30:350:30:38

around the world.

0:30:380:30:40

Three Mile Island,

0:30:410:30:44

Chernobyl

0:30:440:30:45

and Fukushima.

0:30:450:30:46

Now, terms like contamination and radioactive leak

0:30:510:30:55

are for ever etched in the public consciousness.

0:30:550:30:58

I think what haunts us about radioactivity

0:31:020:31:05

is that it's invisible,

0:31:050:31:08

it's intangible

0:31:080:31:10

and sometimes deadly.

0:31:100:31:13

At Sellafield itself, it's something of an obsession.

0:31:130:31:16

BELL RINGS

0:31:160:31:18

Every time I leave a building,

0:31:180:31:21

I'm checked and re-checked for any signs of radioactive contamination.

0:31:210:31:26

But what exactly is radioactivity?

0:31:280:31:31

Radioactivity is, in fact, three different processes,

0:31:320:31:36

each one dangerous in its own particular way.

0:31:360:31:38

They're called alpha, beta and gamma.

0:31:380:31:41

Let me show you with this radioactive source.

0:31:410:31:44

Now, this is a mineral called pitch blend

0:31:440:31:46

which emits all three types of radioactivity.

0:31:460:31:49

The first type is alpha radiation.

0:31:490:31:52

Now, these are the emission of tiny lumps of nuclear matter

0:31:520:31:56

made up of two protons and two neutrons called alpha particles.

0:31:560:32:00

They're spat out from a nucleus, like uranium.

0:32:000:32:03

Now, alpha radiation is very short-ranged

0:32:030:32:06

so I have to bring this detector very close to the source

0:32:060:32:09

to pick them up.

0:32:090:32:11

And even a thin sheet of paper will stop them almost completely.

0:32:130:32:18

Of course, alpha radiation is still dangerous

0:32:180:32:21

when it comes into contact with skin

0:32:210:32:23

or if you breathe it in or ingest it.

0:32:230:32:25

The second type of radioactivity is called beta radiation.

0:32:250:32:29

Now, these are tiny particles, electrons,

0:32:290:32:31

or their cousins, the positrons,

0:32:310:32:33

that are spat out of a nucleus at very high speed.

0:32:330:32:36

When I switch my detector to beta radiation,

0:32:390:32:42

we see that these particles are more penetrating,

0:32:420:32:45

passing straight through paper...

0:32:450:32:47

..but a sheet of aluminium blocks them.

0:32:490:32:52

But beta radiation is also very dangerous -

0:32:550:32:58

in fact, if exposed to it, it can burn the skin.

0:32:580:33:01

Beta particles can even penetrate the skin

0:33:010:33:03

and burn the tissue beneath.

0:33:030:33:05

The third type is gamma radioactivity.

0:33:060:33:08

Now, this is the emission not of particles of matter at all,

0:33:080:33:12

but tiny lumps of light -

0:33:120:33:14

high energy photons that fly out from the nucleus.

0:33:140:33:17

Now when I look for gamma radiation,

0:33:200:33:22

I see it passes easily through the aluminium,

0:33:220:33:25

but a sheet of dense metal like lead effectively blocks them.

0:33:250:33:29

To show you just how damaging gamma radioactivity can be,

0:33:330:33:36

I've got these two plants.

0:33:360:33:38

Now, one I'm going to place safely out here

0:33:380:33:40

and the other inside this radiation furnace.

0:33:400:33:44

This will blast the plant with a huge radiation dose -

0:33:470:33:52

about the same as that given off by a spent nuclear fuel rod.

0:33:520:33:56

Within minutes, the powerful radiation starts to affect the plant

0:34:020:34:07

and our camera.

0:34:070:34:08

The white snow is due to the radiation striking the camera's sensor.

0:34:100:34:14

After an hour, the plant is transformed.

0:34:260:34:30

Oh, wow!

0:34:300:34:32

Look at that -

0:34:320:34:34

the leaves are hanging limply, some of the flowers have fallen off.

0:34:340:34:38

Compared with the healthy specimen, that looks a real mess.

0:34:380:34:42

Under the microscope,

0:34:470:34:49

we can see the damage done to the irradiated sample.

0:34:490:34:51

Now, this is what a healthy sample should look like -

0:34:510:34:56

beautiful, clearly defined cells, nice clean cell walls.

0:34:560:35:01

And here is our irradiated sample -

0:35:010:35:05

the cells are burnt, the cell walls have been damaged...

0:35:050:35:09

and all this from just radioactivity.

0:35:090:35:12

It explodes as energy...

0:35:160:35:19

In the 1960s and '70s,

0:35:190:35:22

public understanding about the effects of radioactivity grew...

0:35:220:35:26

..and so, too, did their unease with the nuclear industry itself.

0:35:270:35:32

The cosy, optimistic, clean image of the '50s had changed.

0:35:320:35:38

Hey, hold it!

0:35:380:35:40

But the government kept faith with the nuclear programme

0:35:400:35:43

and pushed ahead.

0:35:430:35:45

Here at Sellafield, they built the Windscale Advanced Gas Reactor

0:35:460:35:53

and, across the country, there were others -

0:35:530:35:55

Chapelcross,

0:35:550:35:57

Dungeness,

0:35:570:35:58

Sizewell.

0:35:580:35:59

By the mid-'70s, over a dozen nuclear power stations

0:36:010:36:05

were producing a quarter of Britain's electricity...

0:36:050:36:08

..but they were also producing huge amounts of radioactive material.

0:36:110:36:15

Virtually all of it was sent here, to Sellafield, for storage.

0:36:210:36:26

And as we now know, this is nasty stuff.

0:36:260:36:30

So, what on earth were they going to do with it?

0:36:300:36:33

Back then, some of it was simply stored deep underwater

0:36:420:36:47

in these vast open-air storage ponds.

0:36:470:36:49

Hundreds of tonnes of spent fuel rods and radioactive waste

0:36:510:36:55

were effectively dumped.

0:36:550:36:57

Worryingly, there wasn't a long-term plan for any of it.

0:36:590:37:03

By the 1980s,

0:37:080:37:10

one of the defining issues for opponents of the nuclear industry

0:37:100:37:13

was radioactive waste.

0:37:130:37:16

Low-level waste should be the easiest to dispose of.

0:37:160:37:20

In fact, it's simply dumped,

0:37:200:37:23

left to the rain to leach it away, perhaps into local streams.

0:37:230:37:26

Opposition to the nuclear industry grew

0:37:280:37:30

over fears about the amounts of radioactive material

0:37:300:37:34

they felt was being moved around the country.

0:37:340:37:37

By the early '80s,

0:37:400:37:41

there was a battle for the hearts and minds of public opinion.

0:37:410:37:45

Nuclear power is not safe, not economic, not needed

0:37:460:37:50

and certainly not worth the risk.

0:37:500:37:52

The focus of the argument was the disposal of nuclear material.

0:37:530:37:57

The environmentalists on one side,

0:37:590:38:01

trying to stop its movement around the country...

0:38:010:38:04

..the nuclear industry on the other...

0:38:060:38:08

The flask wasn't significantly damaged...

0:38:100:38:12

If they distrust us, we've said, "All right, well, we'll show them."

0:38:120:38:16

..going to extreme lengths to try to prove how safe it was

0:38:160:38:19

when it was being moved.

0:38:190:38:22

But dropping the flask wasn't enough.

0:38:220:38:25

It had remained intact and totally safe for the public

0:38:290:38:32

had it contained actual radioactive materials.

0:38:320:38:35

And all the time, radioactive waste and spent uranium fuel rods

0:38:420:38:46

were still arriving at one place -

0:38:460:38:50

Sellafield.

0:38:500:38:51

It was gaining a reputation as Britain's nuclear dustbin.

0:38:530:38:57

Then, on the 18th of November 1983,

0:38:590:39:02

something happened here that damaged Sellafield's reputation irrevocably,

0:39:020:39:06

so badly, in fact, that many people questioned

0:39:060:39:09

whether the plant should be closed down altogether.

0:39:090:39:12

That morning, scientists at Sellafield looked out to sea

0:39:160:39:19

and saw an inky black slick.

0:39:190:39:22

It was a slick of waste pouring out of Sellafield.

0:39:220:39:25

Something had gone wrong.

0:39:270:39:29

Highly radioactive waste went into this tank by mistake

0:39:290:39:32

and much of it was discharged to the sea.

0:39:320:39:34

Now, it's easy to point the finger in retrospect

0:39:360:39:39

but, without doubt, a certain complacency had set in at Sellafield -

0:39:390:39:43

a day-to-day lack of forethought and safety.

0:39:430:39:47

Due to basic miscommunication,

0:39:470:39:49

stored radioactive water was accidentally released out into the sea.

0:39:490:39:53

Suddenly, more than ever before,

0:39:550:39:58

their safety record was a matter of public concern.

0:39:580:40:01

Greenpeace had been monitoring the discharges when the slick appeared.

0:40:030:40:07

They sent the dinghy

0:40:070:40:08

to the Government's Radiation Protection Board for tests...

0:40:080:40:11

The local environmental pressure group wants Sellafield closed.

0:40:110:40:15

This incident appeared to confirm the environmentalists' worst fears -

0:40:150:40:20

accidents like this were bound to happen.

0:40:200:40:24

The future of Sellafield appeared to hang in the balance.

0:40:270:40:31

But, actually, plans were already in place to change the way

0:40:340:40:38

they dealt with radioactive waste and the spent fuel rods.

0:40:380:40:42

The most ambitious of all...

0:40:430:40:47

was this -

0:40:470:40:49

the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant, Thorp.

0:40:490:40:53

Costing more than £2 billion, it opened in 1994.

0:41:010:41:06

It's one of the world's largest nuclear reprocessing plants,

0:41:070:41:12

designed to deal with spent fuel rods safely...

0:41:120:41:15

..and to commercially extract the uranium from them to be used again.

0:41:180:41:22

In the '70s and '80s, when uranium was thought to be scarce,

0:41:250:41:29

this was a huge idea

0:41:290:41:30

because this uranium can then go back into nuclear power stations.

0:41:300:41:34

Reprocessing had been done at Sellafield before

0:41:370:41:41

but nothing like on this scale.

0:41:410:41:43

This is the receipt pond.

0:41:460:41:49

It's here that the spent fuel canisters arrive

0:41:490:41:51

from power stations all around the world.

0:41:510:41:54

It's in this pond that they're first opened up

0:41:540:41:56

and the spent fuel rods removed and then taken to the storage pond.

0:41:560:42:01

Then, the empty flasks are lifted up, taken away

0:42:080:42:11

and washed to be used again.

0:42:110:42:13

Meanwhile, the spent fuel is moved here -

0:42:220:42:26

a massive storage pond.

0:42:260:42:28

The water acts as a shield,

0:42:300:42:32

blocking the radioactivity while it cools down...

0:42:320:42:34

..a process that can take up to five years.

0:42:370:42:39

Once the fuel rods have cooled down underwater,

0:42:430:42:46

they're ready for the reprocessing to take place.

0:42:460:42:49

Now, first of all, they have to be monitored because we have

0:42:490:42:52

to make sure that they contain what they say on the tin.

0:42:520:42:55

These rods come from reactors from all round the world.

0:42:550:42:58

Once that's done, they can be taken up through that entry there

0:43:030:43:07

into what's called the sheer cave.

0:43:070:43:09

Once they're in there,

0:43:090:43:11

they're behind two metres-thick concrete walls

0:43:110:43:14

and they're beyond any human contact.

0:43:140:43:16

Through metre-thick glass,

0:43:190:43:21

you can see the machinery used to cut up the rods

0:43:210:43:24

before being dissolved into boiling nitric acid.

0:43:240:43:29

The next stage is to extract the pure uranium.

0:43:350:43:38

Each one of these machines is an agitator

0:43:400:43:42

and it just has a stirrer on the bottom

0:43:420:43:44

which mixes up the nitric acid feed with the solvent.

0:43:440:43:47

In my plant, the uranium is contacted with solvent

0:43:470:43:51

and we get just pure uranium.

0:43:510:43:54

The entirety of my system happens behind two metres of concrete.

0:43:540:43:57

I can never touch or never go anywhere near the vessels in my system.

0:43:570:44:01

The actual equipment attached to this motor is metres beneath me,

0:44:010:44:04

in a tank that, until we decommission the plant,

0:44:040:44:07

no-one will ever see again.

0:44:070:44:09

Thorp reclaims the uranium as well as plutonium

0:44:110:44:15

from the spent fuel, so that it can be used again.

0:44:150:44:18

This isn't disposal - it's reprocessing.

0:44:200:44:23

Thorp gave a much-needed boost to Sellafield.

0:44:260:44:31

Attitudes to safety appeared very different from the '70s and '80s.

0:44:310:44:36

It seemed to be taking waste management seriously.

0:44:360:44:39

But although 97% of the spent nuclear fuel is recycled

0:44:480:44:52

here at Sellafield, that still leaves 3% as waste...

0:44:520:44:57

..and that 3% is a problem

0:44:590:45:01

because it's very, very toxic.

0:45:010:45:05

When Otto Hahn carried out his experiment in 1938,

0:45:100:45:14

his fissioned uranium famously produced barium,

0:45:140:45:18

but there were other products, too -

0:45:180:45:20

krypton, strontium, caesium, iodine, xenon

0:45:200:45:24

and exotic heavy metals like americium, berkelium and curium.

0:45:240:45:29

Some of these are powerfully radioactive,

0:45:290:45:32

others have half-lives of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years.

0:45:320:45:36

This cocktail is the most toxic end product

0:45:360:45:39

of the entire nuclear industry.

0:45:390:45:42

This nuclear waste is so dangerous

0:45:460:45:49

that exposure to it would kill you within hours.

0:45:490:45:52

In the '90s, Sellafield designed a process that -

0:45:570:46:01

while it wouldn't render it harmless -

0:46:010:46:04

would at least lock it away.

0:46:040:46:05

Currently, this is the end of the road

0:46:070:46:10

for this foul and dangerous stuff.

0:46:100:46:12

To render it safe and stable, it's vitrified,

0:46:120:46:16

which means it's encased in glass,

0:46:160:46:18

and that process takes place in here...

0:46:180:46:21

..albeit behind a metre of lead glass

0:46:270:46:30

that shields me from the intense radiation.

0:46:300:46:33

The process is simple enough -

0:46:330:46:35

the highly radioactive waste is first dried to a powder.

0:46:350:46:40

It looks a bit like this, strangely like coffee granules.

0:46:400:46:43

Then, glass granules are added to the mixture

0:46:430:46:46

and it's heated to about 1,100 degrees.

0:46:460:46:49

It melts and is poured into those containers in there.

0:46:490:46:53

Now, the important thing about vitrification

0:46:530:46:56

is that it then solidifies as it cools

0:46:560:46:59

so there's no chance of leakage.

0:46:590:47:01

It looks a little bit like this.

0:47:010:47:03

So, the radioactive waste is now not encased in the glass,

0:47:030:47:07

it becomes part of the glass itself.

0:47:070:47:10

Those containers are then sealed, they're decontaminated

0:47:100:47:14

and taken away for storage.

0:47:140:47:16

And this is where the containers of vitrified waste are brought.

0:47:180:47:22

Under this floor, they're stacked up to ten deep.

0:47:220:47:26

They're air-cooled and monitored 24 hours a day.

0:47:260:47:29

The radiation produced by the waste down below is so intense,

0:47:330:47:37

it produces heat that I can feel up here on the surface,

0:47:370:47:40

even though I'm shielded by over two metres of concrete.

0:47:400:47:44

This is where several thousand tonnes of the most toxic waste in the world is stored,

0:47:440:47:51

and here is where it'll currently remain.

0:47:510:47:53

But, ultimately, what makes this nuclear waste so deadly

0:47:570:48:01

is not just the high level of radioactivity,

0:48:010:48:04

but the length of time it remains that way.

0:48:040:48:07

Every isotope is different -

0:48:110:48:14

some are active for just seconds,

0:48:140:48:16

others remain radioactive for millions of years.

0:48:160:48:19

This facet of their character

0:48:190:48:21

is captured by something called the half-life.

0:48:210:48:24

SIREN BLARES

0:48:240:48:26

To show you what I mean, I've set up an experiment.

0:48:310:48:35

I'm bombarding a sample of quartz with a proton beam.

0:48:350:48:39

This will make it radioactive.

0:48:400:48:42

It's produced an isotope of nitrogen that is radioactive.

0:48:480:48:51

It's producing beta particles

0:48:510:48:53

and these are counted by this device here.

0:48:530:48:56

Now, to give you an idea of what a half-life means,

0:48:560:48:59

I'm going to record the activity every minute for half an hour.

0:48:590:49:04

OK, so it's now showing that 1,400 beta particles per second

0:49:040:49:08

are being emitted.

0:49:080:49:10

So, that's 1,150 counts after one minute.

0:49:120:49:16

Dropping right down.

0:49:220:49:24

Now down to just under 700 after five minutes.

0:49:240:49:27

So, here's what my graph tells me.

0:49:330:49:36

My sample started off with a count rate of 1,400 per second.

0:49:360:49:41

After eight or nine minutes, that had dropped by a half

0:49:410:49:44

and then by a further half after another nine minutes.

0:49:440:49:47

This period of time over which the count rate drops by a half

0:49:470:49:51

is called the half-life.

0:49:510:49:54

And this is important because, unlike my sample -

0:49:540:49:58

which has a half-life of nine minutes -

0:49:580:50:00

some of the material at Sellafield

0:50:000:50:02

has a half-life of hundreds of thousands of years.

0:50:020:50:05

In other words, it won't be safe for thousands of generations.

0:50:070:50:11

And this means that much of the work here is now about finding ways

0:50:150:50:19

to store this material safely for a very long time.

0:50:190:50:23

In the early days, they built nuclear reactors

0:50:320:50:35

with little thought of what to do when they came to the end of their working lives.

0:50:350:50:40

For instance, this experimental reactor built here at Sellafield in the '60s

0:50:430:50:48

was finally shut down in 1981.

0:50:480:50:50

Sellafield decommissioned this core by building a giant robotic arm

0:50:520:50:57

that reached inside and cut it up into fragments.

0:50:570:51:01

It then put all those dangerous radioactive pieces

0:51:010:51:03

into large steel reinforced concrete boxes.

0:51:030:51:07

And those boxes are stored here at Sellafield,

0:51:130:51:16

in this air-conditioned warehouse.

0:51:160:51:18

This, then, is the decommissioned core of a nuclear reactor.

0:51:200:51:25

It's very unnerving hearing the radiation detector

0:51:290:51:31

making so much noise.

0:51:310:51:33

In fact, these levels are completely safe -

0:51:330:51:36

still, it's eerie being so close to something so deadly.

0:51:360:51:40

These concrete blocks will contain the radioactivity

0:51:420:51:45

until it's relatively harmless, some 100 years from now.

0:51:450:51:49

But just across the road

0:52:030:52:05

is one of the most controversial problems facing Sellafield today -

0:52:050:52:10

cleaning up the waste from the legacy ponds.

0:52:100:52:12

This is the First Generation Magnox Storage Pond,

0:52:150:52:19

acknowledged by Sellafield themselves

0:52:190:52:21

as one of the most dangerous buildings in Western Europe.

0:52:210:52:24

And that's because the ponds that nuclear waste was dumped in

0:52:260:52:29

for decades are deteriorating.

0:52:290:52:33

Contaminated water is seeping through the internal walls.

0:52:330:52:36

Sellafield's current plan is to remove the waste

0:52:390:52:42

from these ageing ponds, mix it with concrete

0:52:420:52:45

and then store it in steel containers.

0:52:450:52:47

They're already using a remote-controlled vehicle

0:52:510:52:53

to start that process.

0:52:530:52:57

You can see some of the components have come apart.

0:52:570:53:00

What sort of stuff is down here?

0:53:000:53:02

We have a significant amount of spent nuclear fuel.

0:53:020:53:05

There are quite a lot of reactor components and isotope cartridges.

0:53:050:53:10

Do you want to try and lift that one up, Helen?

0:53:100:53:13

-No pressure!

-No pressure.

0:53:130:53:15

How long has that component been in the pond?

0:53:150:53:19

Erm, that's the first time it's been touched in probably 51 years.

0:53:190:53:23

It seems a whole range of different things are there -

0:53:230:53:26

why were they all put in the pond together like this?

0:53:260:53:29

The pond was there supporting the effort towards getting us a bomb together.

0:53:290:53:33

It was rushed,

0:53:330:53:35

We had to get that bomb ready for the early '50s

0:53:350:53:38

to prove that we had it, and, once we had the bomb,

0:53:380:53:41

I guess things got forgotten about.

0:53:410:53:44

Right. Well, now that you've sort of made me somewhat nervous,

0:53:440:53:48

I still would like to have a go.

0:53:480:53:51

Give it to me when you know I can't do any harm!

0:53:510:53:54

-So can I look inside what's in here?

-Yeah.

0:53:540:53:57

This one has got isotope cans that have corroded.

0:53:570:54:01

-So all of that is...

-It's started to bow and overflow.

0:54:010:54:04

It's like...

0:54:040:54:06

the nastiest kind of buried treasure you could imagine!

0:54:060:54:09

How dangerous is this stuff?

0:54:110:54:13

In situ, as it stands with a five-metre water covering,

0:54:130:54:16

it's less dangerous than you would imagine.

0:54:160:54:18

The dose rates coming off it are minimal.

0:54:180:54:21

However, if some of the material were allowed to dry out,

0:54:210:54:25

that would be a different matter -

0:54:250:54:26

it could cause a major contamination hazard.

0:54:260:54:29

The fact that this stuff is down there and is so nasty -

0:54:290:54:32

for many people, this is an argument against nuclear power,

0:54:320:54:35

"Look, this is the sort of mess that it creates."

0:54:350:54:37

This is certainly an argument against the way things were dealt with 50, 60 years ago,

0:54:370:54:42

but we have a duty to clean it up.

0:54:420:54:44

We can't just leave the hazard for yet another generation.

0:54:440:54:47

And yet, in some way, I can't help feeling we are still leaving it

0:54:540:54:58

for another generation, just in safer stores.

0:54:580:55:02

The waste from the ponds will be stored in steel containers.

0:55:040:55:07

The dead reactors are just stored in concrete blocks.

0:55:090:55:13

And the most radioactive material of all,

0:55:150:55:17

the vitrified high-level waste,

0:55:170:55:20

is still in a warehouse on site here at Sellafield.

0:55:200:55:23

I think we do need long-term options for this waste.

0:55:260:55:29

Can we store it safely in places like this for 100 generations?

0:55:290:55:33

The current long-term plan is to bury it deep underground,

0:55:340:55:39

locking it away for ever...

0:55:390:55:40

..but this plan continues to divide opinion.

0:55:420:55:45

Personally, I believe that if we do bury it,

0:55:490:55:51

we have to have the option of being able to retrieve it

0:55:510:55:54

at some point in the future

0:55:540:55:55

because if we're to have a nuclear industry -

0:55:550:55:58

and I think we should -

0:55:580:56:00

we need to deal with this waste permanently.

0:56:000:56:03

And one possible option that fascinates me

0:56:030:56:06

is to find a way to transmute it -

0:56:060:56:08

bombard it with a high energy, high intensity beam of neutrons

0:56:080:56:12

that smashes it up into far less harmful fragments.

0:56:120:56:16

I think this is an option worth exploring

0:56:160:56:19

because I believe nuclear power, alongside renewables,

0:56:190:56:22

is crucial for our future energy needs.

0:56:220:56:25

The story of Sellafield is the story of the British nuclear age.

0:56:340:56:38

Sellafield began as a headlong rush to develop nuclear weapons and nuclear power

0:56:430:56:49

with little thought to the future.

0:56:490:56:51

It appeared to be a success...

0:56:530:56:55

..then the cracks started to show -

0:56:570:57:00

leaks and the fire released deadly radioactivity

0:57:000:57:03

out into the air and sea.

0:57:030:57:05

And successive governments and, indeed, the public themselves

0:57:070:57:10

demanded that the nuclear industry clean up its act.

0:57:100:57:14

With massive investment,

0:57:180:57:19

Sellafield seemed to enter a more responsible phase

0:57:190:57:22

in managing nuclear waste.

0:57:220:57:24

And, as we deal with the issues of climate change,

0:57:240:57:27

it seems we might be on the cusp of a new nuclear age.

0:57:270:57:31

Where I'm walking now is a proposed site

0:57:350:57:38

for the next generation of nuclear power stations,

0:57:380:57:41

just a few hundred metres from Sellafield -

0:57:410:57:43

so in the shadow of the very first.

0:57:430:57:46

This seems a poignant place

0:57:470:57:49

to ponder the lessons we can take from Sellafield.

0:57:490:57:52

We've understood, slowly and not without mistakes,

0:57:520:57:56

that if we are to have a nuclear industry,

0:57:560:57:58

then we have to think in the long term -

0:57:580:58:01

not just for the quick buck or because of political pressure,

0:58:010:58:05

but in terms of the many decades, even centuries,

0:58:050:58:08

it takes from conception all the way through to the end of clean-up.

0:58:080:58:13

And this is an important lesson, not just for the nuclear industry,

0:58:130:58:16

but for any of mankind's more ambitious projects -

0:58:160:58:19

be they scientific, engineering, political -

0:58:190:58:22

we must take the long view.

0:58:220:58:25

Otherwise, well, we have learnt nothing.

0:58:250:58:28

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