Sellafield: Britain’s most controversial industrial site. The massive complex looks somewhat out of place against a background of rural beauty. Inside Sellafield, Youtube 50.14, 1989
Since the ’50s it has played a key role in providing Britain and the United States with the essential ingredients for atomic weapons. ibid.
‘It isn’t safe, it isn’t cheap … and it isn’t peaceful.’ ibid. Tony Benn
An early hiccup in the plan after an additional plant was added … An accident contaminated thirty workers and the building was permanently shut down. ibid.
Plan To Make Britain World’s Nuclear Dustbin. ibid. Daily Mirror front page
B38, the building which held the ponds holding spent fuel for Magnox reactors, had sprung a leak. 100 gallons of water a day was flooding into the soil around the building … No-one knew how long the leak had been going on. ibid.
A pipe carrying waste to a tank … at Harwell had not been capped. For years the liquid waste had been overflowing … No-one could say for sure how long this had been going on now how much had seeped through to the soil outside. ibid.
1983: A discharge from the Sellafield pipeline released 50,000 curies of radioactivity. ibid.
1992: An explosion when plutonium sprayed from a pipe inside a reprocessing cell. ibid.
The fast breeder programme in the UK has died a death. ibid.
Plutonium was transported down the highways and byways of Britain … carried in a sealed drum lashed to the back of a lorry. Equinox: A Very British Bomb, Channel 4 1991
Royal City, Washington: Below my feet under the ground is a military junkyard. It’s a Titan 1 nuclear missile silo. What’s Inside America’s Abandoned Nuclear Sites? Vice TV 2023
The US spent trillions stockpiling their arsenal, but they are in no hurry to clean up the mess. ibid.
This missile silo is one of hundreds across the US that were already out of date by the time they were ready for action. ibid.
In October 1952, using the plutonium made in Windscale, Britain became a nuclear power. Inside Story: Our Reactor is On Fire, BBC 1990
The Windscale piles which produced the material for the British bomb were air-cooled. ibid.
The Windscale piles were Britain’s first large-scale nuclear reactors. Although their design was simple, they had several limitations. ibid.
The particle [local contamination] was irradiated uranium oxide. It contained a cocktail of radioactive materials including Cesium, Strontium 90 and Plutonium. ibid.
The uranium fuel at the heart of the core was now burning furiously … ‘Quite a lot of it was in the coastal strip … There was obviously something radically wrong.’ ibid.
‘There had been discharges previously and nothing had been done about it.’ ibid. scientist
I have been asked whether in the years to come it will be possible to kill forty million American people by the use of atomic bombs in a single night. I’m afraid the answer to that question is yes. To End All War: Oppenheimer & the Atomic Bomb, Oppenheimer, Sky 2023
Robert Oppenheimer was the father of the atomic bomb. ibid. dude
This cultured non-violent man was responsible for birthing the most violent weapon in human history. ibid.
And they were led by this very enigmatic strange bright-blue-eyed young man who they all admired. ibid.
We did think about whether its destructiveness, its danger, could be vividly demonstrated over a barren and uninhabited target. And we were very doubtful of that. ibid. Oppenheimer
He becomes a rock star. He’s the oracle of American science. ibid. author
After the security trial Oppenheimer was never the same man again. He was a hollow man after that. ibid.
‘In the course of making plutonium for nuclear weapons they dumped about 440 billion gallons of contaminated liquids into the ground.’ Radioactive Waste: A Nuclear Nightmare, Youtube 1.16.55, Endevr 2023
These images shot in June 2002 shocked public opinion. It showed that certain areas of the ocean bottom are covered with radioactive barrels that are ripped open. Where is the nuclear waste they contained? ibid.
In less that 50 years countries using nuclear energy have buried over 100,000 metric tons of waste in various oceans. The British alone have dumped 80% of the total amount. ibid.
The radioactive contamination continues to spread beneath the [underground] tanks. ibid.
A badly maintained tank of nuclear waste exploded in the Urals in 1957 … This nuclear accident was the worst in the world before Chenobyl. But everything was kept secret. ibid.
Nuclear weapons are one of the greatest threats to humanity. Every year there’s a meeting to assess the risk for global catastrophe and set the doomsday clock. The hands are currently at ninety seconds to midnight. This World: Nuclear Armageddon: How Close Are We? BBC 2024
We’re in a new Cold War with the Russians. Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War I: The Sun Came Up Tremendous, Professor Tom Nichols, Netflix 2024
The Cold War, which began in phases, ultimately became a global existential struggle between the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its allies. At its peak the Cold War touched every continent except Antarctica. ibid. Timothy Naftali
I’m not sure there would be a Cold War without nuclear weapons. ibid. Serhii Plokhy, author Atoms & Ashes
Lessons that we thought we learned were not learned. ibid. Lesley M M Blume
It was as if the sun came up tremendous. ibid. Barbara Kent, reaction of girls’ dance instructor near Trinity test site; only one of the girls lived till 30
They were so big and so destructive that basically they couldn’t be used. This is one of the reasons that we think of the Cold War as a cold war. It could not be hot. ibid. Audra Wolfe
In the early years of the Cold War the United States treated nuclear weapons not only as if they were something that could be used, but something that could be survived. Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War III: Institutional Insanity, Audra Wolfe
The decision to seek or not to seek international control of atomic energy, the decision to try to make or not to make the hydrogen bomb, these are rooted in complex technical issues. But they touch the very basis of our morality. It is grave danger for us that these decisions are taken on the basis of facts held secret. ibid. Robert Oppenheimer
It struck me as the most evil and insane plan that had ever existed in the history of humanity. This is institutional insanity. ibid. Daniel Ellsberg
Nuclear weapons are expensive and for the Soviet Union it was the kind of burden that distorted the structure of the Soviet economy. Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War V: War Games, Palazhchenko
This whole thing is wrong. Such weapons should not exist. ibid. Gorbachev, reported comments
The whole hearing took a month. Oppenheimer 2023 ***** starring Cillian Murphy & Emily Blunt & Matt Damon & Robert Downey junior & Florence Pugh & Josh Hartnett & Casey Affleck & Rami Malek & Kenneth Branagh & Dylon Arnold et al, director Christopher Nolan, Admiral
Who’d want to justify their whole life? ibid. hearing
Happy? No. I was homesick, emotionally immature … troubled by visions of a hidden universe. ibid. Oppenheimer
What do you know about quantum physics? ibid.
Alvarez: What are we thinking?
Oppenheim: A bomb, Alvarez, a bomb. ibid.
You’re not just self-important, you’re actually important. ibid. boss to Oppenheimer
Somebody who wanted Robert silenced. ibid. Admiral
A secret laboratory in the middle of nowhere, secure, self-sufficient, equipment, housing, the works, keep everyone there till it’s done … ibid.
You drop a bomb, it falls on the just and the unjust. I don’t wish the culmination of three centuries of physics to be a weapon of mass destruction. ibid. Izzy
We still don’t know if a hydrogen bomb is technically feasible. ibid. Oppenheimer
You’re the great salesman of science. You can convince anyone of anything. Even yourself. ibid. Szilard
What did Fermi mean by atmospheric ignition? ibid. General to Oppenheimer
Robert, try not to blow up the world. ibid.
These things are hard on your heart. ibid. Oppenheimer
And now I am become death. The destroyer of worlds. ibid.
Now it’s your turn to deal with the consequences of your achievement. ibid. Einstein to Oppenheimer