‘We’ve got an energy crisis looming. And we need to tell people if we don’t invest now, the lights are going to go out.’ The Atom: A Love Affair, Cameron, Netflix 2020
‘Under my presidency, we’ll accomplish a complete American energy independence. Complete. Complete.’ ibid. Trump
The atom, a thing of wonder, the building block of the universe. But with the power to destroy it too. A byword for war, the atom knew it could be so much more: a miracle technology that would revolutionise medicine, industry, agriculture, transport, and most of all, energy. If only we would let it. ibid.
In the annals of love, it’s an affair like no other. ibid.
‘The British set up the first civil nuclear plant at Calder Hall in the UK.’ ibid. scientist
Germany: The peaceful teach-ins soon gave way to far uglier scenes. ibid.
March 1979: Three Mile Island, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, an accident at a nuclear power plant. ibid. TV news
A partial meltdown less than 100 miles from a major city. ibid.
Windscale/Sellafield: ‘BNFL was accused of having radioactivity along the shoreline.’ ibid. scientist critic
Chernobyl: ‘12,500 square kilometres … uninhabitable. ibid.
A plume of radioactive fallout drifted west over Europe. ibid.
Bloody exhausting everything, isn’t it? Play for Today: Stronger than the Sun by Stephen Poliakoff, boss to Alan, BBC 1977
I want you to let me look through those contamination reports in the lab. ibid. Alan to Kate
I’ve come to realise that what we’re doing here is wrong. ibid.
There’s been a leak in the plant at 506. ibid. Kate to journalist
We’ve got to get some plutonium out of here. Kate to Alan
It’s our opinion she might be a risk to herself or others. ibid. plant boss to Alan
On April 25th 1986 Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev has been in power for only one year … Chernobyl is a symbol of the Soviet Union’s industrial and technological muscle. Soviet nuclear scientists consider it to be the cream of the nation’s nuclear plants. Seconds from Disaster s1e7: Meltdown in Chernobyl, National Geographic 2004
Chernobyl has four reactors all running at the same time. ibid.
A safety drill – but from the start, problems develop, and now something seems to be going very wrong. The young men who work the night shift struggle to prevent a major nuclear accident. ibid.
Chernobyl’s number four reactor explodes. The force of the explosion blows the reactor’s 2,000-ton steel roof sideways. 8 tons of highly reactive fuel blast into the night sky. ibid.
Northern Japan, March 11th 2011: The earthquake continues for 5 minutes. It’s felt 230 km away in Tokyo … The most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan. Seconds from Disaster s5e1: Fukushima, National Geographic 2012
The first news pictures show widespread devastation throughout the north of the county. ibid.
Fukushima Power Station bears the full force of the Tsunami … A massive aftershock rocks the plant; almost immediately the building which houses Reactor No. 1 explodes … An even larger explosion blows the building that houses Reactor No. 3 … And the very next day another explosion causes a huge fire in Reactor building 4. ibid.
The skies over Japan, August 9th 1945: America is about to drop its second atomic bomb in three days. Within seconds 30% of Nagasaki is flattened, and more than 30,000 people are vaporized. Seconds from Disaster s6e8: Nagasaki: The Forgotten Bomb
With the force of 22 kilo-tons of TNT, Fatman generates heat of over 4,000 degrees Celsius, and winds of up to 1,000 kilometres an hour that surge across the city.
6.7 square kilometres of the city has been turned to rubble. More than 70,000 men, women and children are vaporized. 70,000 more are injured. ibid.
To enable me to cope with the stresses and the nightmares from the atom bombs I witnessed, I have devised ways and means of keeping myself busy. Britain’s Nuclear Bomb Scandal: Our Story, comment, BBC 2024
I’m part of something that should never have happened. ibid.
The longest-running scandal in British history. There is nothing bigger or worse than what’s happened to the nuclear victims. ibid.
You could see the evil in it. It was like looking at the devil. ibid.
Between 1952 and 1963 Britain embarks on a series of nuclear tests in Australia and the South Pacific. The operation involves around 39,000 British and Commonwealth servicemen and scientists. Collectively, the men experience 45 atomic and hydrogen bombs and hundreds of radioactive experiments. ibid. captions
You feel it go through your body. You’re like a light-bulb. ibid. comment
Nobody told us anything. We were just left to get on with life. ibid.
The hydrogen bomb is now as necessary as the atomic bomb was before it. ibid.
They [children] were playing in the sand dunes that day. ibid. Australian indigenous relative of survivor
A 1980 report suggested that up to 50 Aboriginal people died as a direct result of the black mist. Without official records that number cannot be substantiated. ibid. caption
Of the 300 or so men who were on HMS Diana, about half of those who are found to have died since, died from tumours of some sort. ibid. comment
Between 1953 and 1963, 205 men were ordered to fly through mushroom clouds. ibid.
The neglect of safety at Christmas Island was appalling. ibid.
Those at the top were not too worried about the human cost. ibid.
We knew enough to know that this is dangerous. ibid.
The ionising radiation is with you for the rest of your days. ibid.
Very little was shared even with the Australian government. ibid.
Maralinga: Roughly 22 kg of Plutonium-239 was left lying around the site. And that’s easily enough to kill everyone on the planet. ibid.
The question is simple: What killed the babies? ibid.
We have now three or four generations being born with problems. ibid.
It’s like these invisible bullets that keep being fired. ibid.
In 1945 a frail-looking scientist drove this road on his way to the Trinity site. It’s a sad and depressing stretch of vast unforgiving desert in New Mexico. Oppenheimer: The Real Story, Amazon Prime 2023
He was an ivory tower academic, a multi-linguist, a polymath, an undoubted genius, had never managed more than a handful of students. ibid.
A scientific community of over 6,000 people. ibid.
A Phd in under under 18 months. ibid. comment
Here it is, General Groves, plutonium! ibid. Information film, scientist presents test tube
As it turned out he was the perfect choice to be in charge of this operation. ibid.
Oppenheimer turned out to be a good manager. ibid.