Of course we were worried to go out into the unknown of space. Of course we were fearful. We had no idea how a human would be affected by the radiation. We suspected that possibly the radiation could even penetrate through the craft itself. Boris Valentinovich Volynov
A radiation test was done on the clothes and hats that the [Travis Walton] group were wearing on the night: the Geiger-counter gave an abnormally high reading: a six on a scale of ten. UFO Files s1e2 Alien Abduction, History 2004
This film is the story of a metal. A metal which for a hundred and fifty years since its discovery at the end of the eighteenth century was virtually unused. Now this metal is being dug and blasted from the earth at such a rapidly increasing rate that all known reserves could well be exhausted before the year 2000. This is the story of Uranium. Horizon: Uranium Goes Critical, BBC 1979
Uranium doesn’t have much of a past, and it may not have much of a future. ibid.
An energy source that was once described as limitless. ibid.
The world has over two hundred powered reactors. ibid.
Only its weight was remarkable: one and a half times as heavy as lead. ibid.
Until the 1940s glazing pottery and colouring glass was the most important application that had been found for uranium. ibid.
In ultra-violet light the florescence is very strong ... A great many uranium salts and minerals display the same strong fluorescence. ibid.
Paris 1896 and Henri Becquerel was investigating whether there was a relationship between fluorescence and the newly discovered X-Rays ... The uranium was spontaneously emitting its own radiation ... Becquerel’s rays were christened radioactivity. ibid.
A new phrase entered the language: nuclear fission. ibid.
Might a chain reaction be possible? ... In 1942 in a squash court in Chicago Enrico Fermi built a small mountain of uranium and graphite to try to find out ... He could only hope that the chain reaction would start before his pile went through the ceiling. ibid.
Now at last they found a use for uranium. It was a cataclysmic start. ibid.
In 1956 Calder Hall in Cumbria became the world’s first nuclear-powered reactor. ibid.
Uranium is not limitless. The total known reserves are about two and a half million tons, and most of that will be gone by the year 2000. ibid.
It has to be uranium. And there’s only one type, one isotope – U-235 – that’s useful. Yet in any uranium bar the U-235 makes less than 1%; the remainder is the non-fissile U-238. ibid.
99% of all the uranium mined is unused. ibid.
Conventional nuclear reactors are not the answer to our energy needs. They’re too greedy. ibid.
The price has rocketed ... 70% of the Western world’s known resources are found in just four countries. The USA has the biggest share, but it’s probably less than their own needs. Then South Africa, most of whose reserves are in Namibia. Australia with extensive untapped deposits. And Canada – Europe’s principle supplier. ibid.
There is some uranium everywhere. ibid.
There are undoubtedly hazards. After all uranium is a radioactive metal. The principle danger comes not from uranium itself but from its daughter products, particularly radon. ibid.
In the Spring of 1896 Henri Becquerel’s discovery of radioactivity opened up a whole new dimension to geological dating of the Earth. Six years later Ernest Rutherford realised that the law of radioactive decay could be used to date rocks. Horizon: Message in the Rocks, BBC 1979
A team of Soviet scientists risk their lives in the aftermath of the disaster go to inside Chernobyl. Five years ago Horizon went with them – the first Western television unit to do so. They revealed the extent of the danger from the reactor and the sarcophagus built around it. Horizon: Inside Chernobyl’s Sarcophagus, BBC 1996
Chernobyl 1991: Five years after the accident this is the final resting place for one hundred and thirty-five tons of uranium, plutonium and other extreme radioactive elements. The contents of this tomb will remain radioactive for at least one hundred thousand years. ibid.
The hunt for Chernobyl’s escaped nuclear fuel has been vital since the first moments after the accident in April 1986. The nuclear explosion destroyed the top of the reactor building and radioactive smoke was pouring forth. ibid.
Entire content of the core had simply vanished. If it wasn’t inside the reactor, where had the escaped fuel gone? Attention switched to the intensely radioactive rooms underneath the reactor. ibid.
A British scientist who saw Horizon’s film took blood samples from the Soviet team. High radiation doses had left their mark: abnormal chromosomes. ibid.
While Chernobyl becomes a billion-dollar bargaining card the fate of the sarcophagus remains as uncertain as it was five years ago. ibid.
For the last fifty years we’ve lived with the fear of radiation ... A growing number of scientists are asking whether it’s time to think again about the dangers of radiation. Horizon: Nuclear Nightmares, BBC 2006
Back in the 1920s and ’30s devices were sold that deliberately increased our radiation exposure ... In fact radiation became so fashionable it was used as a brand name to sell ordinary household items. ibid.
In the mid-1950s Britain opened the world’s first nuclear power station. Other countries raced to catch up. Nuclear power stations spread across the industrialised world. ibid.
Then in 1979 came America’s worst nuclear accident. Three Mile Island shook America’s confidence in nuclear power. Though there was no significant release of radiation. ibid.
Tatiana lived in the town of Pripyat within sight of the power station. Driving down the main street memories of the evacuation flood back ... Some 200,000 abortions are thought to have been performed. Tatiana was one of the few to resist, and Aliona was born healthy six months later. But the family has lived in fear ever since of what her exposure to radiation might mean. ibid.
The accident sent a radioactive plume of fear across Europe. If Three Mile Island had been bad for nuclear power, Chernobyl was a catastrophe. The expansion of the nuclear power programme came to a halt. It had become environmentally and politically too controversial. ibid.
47 deaths among liquidators, 9 deaths from childhood thyroid cancer ... That makes a maximum of 56 deaths that can be directly attributed to the effects of radiation. ibid.
In Chernobyl today thanks to the clean-up operation radiation levels are no higher than normal background in many parts of the world. Yet people’s lives are still being scarred by the fear of it. ibid.
It sounds totally improbable but it appears radiation may actually help the body resist genetic damage. What could be going on? ... Low level radiation may be beneficial. ibid.
Some scientists now believe the impact of this same radio-phobia could be very damaging. ibid.
At the Three-Mile Island Power Station in Pennsylvania a series of human and mechanical errors caused the nuclear reactor to overheat. As the temperature increased so too did the risk that the radioactive fuel would escape its casing. For forty-eight hours the station stood on the brink of total meltdown. Eventually the reactor cooled. And the fuel was contained. Deep inside lay ten million litres of contaminated water. And a further one hundred tons of uranium. It would take over a decade to dispose of it. Horizon: The President’s Guide to Science, BBC 2008
Heat remained in the reactors and they slowly started to cook ... There was a release of steam and radioactive particles. Jim Al-Khalili, Horizon: Fukushima, Is Nuclear Power Safe? BBC 2011
Radioactive iodine and radioactive caesium. ibid.
Chernobyl ... They are lower than anyone expected ... Thyroid cancer: the numbers are very low. ibid.
They live in constant fear of what the radiation might have done to them. ibid.
In 1896 in Paris came the most significant discovery of all. One that more than any other would unlock the secrets of the atom. The metal uranium was shown to emit a strange and powerful energy that was named radioactivity. It seemed straight out of science fiction. Radioactive metals were warm to touch. They could even burn the skin. And the rays could pass through solid matter as if it wasn’t there. It truly was a marvel of the modern age. Professor Jim Al-Khalili, Atom s1e1: The Clash of the Titans, BBC 2007
Radium is an extraordinary powerful source of radioactivity that Rutherford had named Alpha rays. They weren’t really rays, they were more a steady stream of particles, and radium spat out these particles like a machine gun that never ran out of bullets. ibid.
Radium: it was a sensational discovery for one primary reason: though radium looks like an unremarkable grey metal it contradicted all the then known laws of physics. Because radium pumps out invisible yet powerful rays of energy which could fog sealed photographic paper and burn human flesh. Jim Al-Khalili, Atom s1e2: The Key to the Cosmos
Radium appeared to contain within it an inexhaustible store of energy. Curie worked out that a gram of radium – a piece much smaller than a penny – contains more energy than a hundred tons of coal. ibid.
When radium was first discovered they found all sorts of weird and wonderful commercial uses for it; here is the radium bath products, there’s the radium eau de cologne, atomic perfume and radium face cream. ibid.