The idyllic picture of a nuclear Eden masked a [Soviet] reality in which safety was barely even considered. The reactors were built at great speed to cut costs and to fulfil the Soviet plan. Some had no protective containment at all despite the higher pressures of steam. ibid.
‘Under [Leonid] Brezhnev things started to fall apart. Theft and negligence were rife. In the late seventies the Brezhnev era reached new heights of corruption just as we were building more atomic plants than ever. Our efforts to solve this problem internally failed completely so we went public.’ ibid. nuclear scientist
In America the enormous nuclear plants ordered in the sixties were nearing completion. The engineers in charge were beginning to discover the trap they had set themselves by failing to redesign the containment. If a molten core could not be contained then the emergency systems to prevent a meltdown would have to work whatever happened. ibid.
On March 28th 1979 a series of human and mechanical errors at the Three-Mile Island plant exposed the core. It reacted with steam and produced hydrogen which exploded. None of the emergency teams could understand what was going on inside the reactor. ibid.
There were protests against nuclear power throughout the world. In the public’s imagination it was transformed from something good to something bad. Much of the anger was turned on the nuclear scientists. It emerged they had deliberately concealed many of the risks and uncertainties they had discovered. ibid.
At the start of the 1980s Britain is in industrial decline. And almost nobody is paying attention to what would come next. But one group of people have discovered the answer to the country’s problems and their vision will change Britain, its culture and the world beyond. Made in the ’80s: Decade that Shaped Our World III: Silicon Brittania
Computer technology is the stuff of science fiction … For some people in the ’80s Britain’s tech revolution is more than a hobby, it’s a lifeline. ibid.