Publicatie Laka-bibliotheek:
That choice Windscale. The issues of reprocessing (1978)
| Auteur | Czech Conroy |
| Datum | 1978 |
| Classificatie | 2.05.8.35/01 (GROOT-BRITTANNIË - SELLAFIELD - THORP) |
| Voorkant | 
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Uit de publicatie:
1. Introduction It was in 1947 that secret work began in a beautiful and remote area of West- Cumbria on processes which led, in October 1952, to the first explosion by Britain of a nuclear bomb. Only a few of the 106 or so known elements exist in forms which are 'fissile' and can be used as a nuclear explosive. To date only 2 of those elements have been so used - uranium (chiefly that form, or 'isotope', of uranium known as uranium-235) and plutonium (composed mainly of the isotope plutonium-239). The explosive in the British bomb was plutonium, a chemical discovered by the Americans during the Second World War. Nevertheless, by 1947 Britain was capable of mounting a large scale programme to produce and separate plutonium for use in bombs. The basic facilities required were 2 nuclear reactors and a 'chemical separation' or 'plutonium extraction' plant. From these beginnings has grown the vast nuclear complex now known throughout the world as Windscale. As uranium is 'burned' in a reactor some of it is turned into plutonium. Plutonium extraction, or reprocessing, as it is now called, involves removing the protective 'cladding' with which all nuclear fuel is surrounded and releasing the uranium and other chemicals found in the spent fuel. These chemicals are then put through a number of processes which separate them into roughly three solutions: unused uranium, plutonium and fission products. This would be an ordinary chemical process if it were not for the radioactivity, which takes 3 forms: alpha rays from actinides; beta rays from fission products, requiring filtering etc., to remove from air; and gamma rays from fission products, requiring shielding. The first Windscale reprocessing plant, known as B204 (since it was in building 204), operated from 1952 to 1964, handling the uranium from the Windscale reactors until a fire in 1957 led to the permanent closure of both reactors; and from 1956 onwards handling spent fuel from the nearby Calder Hall reactors whose main function was to produce more plutonium for the weapons programme, but which also produced electricity. Those reactors, like the original Windscale reactors, used a natural uranium metal fuel clad in a magnesium alloy and are thus known as MAGNOX reactors.
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