An atomic empire : a technical history of the rise and fall of the british atomic energy programme / C N Hill.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hill, C. N.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nuclear energy--Great Britain.

Nuclear energy.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

x, 355 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm

Place of Publication:

London : Imperial College Press, 2013.

Summary:

Britain was the first country to exploit atomic energy on a large scale, and at its peak in the mid-1960s, it had generated more electricity from nuclear power than the rest of the world combined. The civil atomic energy programme grew out of the military programme which produced plutonium for atomic weapons. In 1956, Calder Hall power station was opened by the Queen. The very next year, one of the early Windscale reactors caught fire and the world's first major nuclear accident occurred. The civil programme ran into further difficulty in the mid-1960s and as a consequence of procrastination in the decision-making process, the programme lost momentum and effectively died. No nuclear power stations have been built in Britain since Sizewell B in the late 1980s. This book presents a study of government papers that have recently become available in the public domain. For the first time in history, the research reactor programme is presented in detail, along with a study of the decisions made by the government, the Atomic Energy Authority (AEA), and the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB). This book is aimed at both specialists in nuclear power and the interested public as a technical history on the development and ultimate failure of the British atomic energy programme. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Introduction 1

2 Atomic Physics 7

3 People and Places 21

4 The British Production Piles 51

5 The British Bomb 75

6 The Windscale Incident 105

7 The Fast Reactor 139

8 PIPPA and Calder Hall 157

9 CTR and ZETA 181

10 Research Reactors 195

11 The Magnox Stations 219

12 The Second Power Programme: The Alternatives 251

13 The Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactor 265

14 The SGHWR 289

15 DRAGON and the HTR 307

16 Atomic Energy at Sea 321

17 Finale 339.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1908977426

9781908977427

9781908977410

1908977418

OCLC:

822894618