BBC_Dounreay The Atomic Dream
Transcript
00:0050 years ago, a project began in the north of Scotland to push back the frontiers of
00:08science. The men behind it were driven by a dream. Cheap, limitless energy.
00:19One sphere was a reactor which could solve the world's problems.
00:32We felt we would be rendering a service to the country and to humanity.
00:37We were perhaps 50 to 100 years before our time.
00:43The quiet fishing and farming county of Caithness found itself at the forefront of atomic research.
00:50Caithness suddenly became very cosmopolitan. There were more graduates per head of
00:55population in Caithness than there was in Oxford and Cambridge. A final movement of the
00:59controls was made. The Doonray fast breeder reactor was in operation.
01:04The technology proved a success. The whole atmosphere was one of we've done it.
01:11But the atom plant's been plagued with problems. First thing I thought, oh this is a
01:15nuclear explosion. Today, the dreams turn sour. Doonray is being dismantled.
01:26When the designers made Doonray, they never looked to the wayside.
01:32They're dealing with a legacy of huge problems. This is the story of the rise
01:39and fall of a daring experiment into atomic energy.
01:58The north coast of Scotland is one of the last great wildernesses of Europe.
02:03Closer to the Arctic Circle than to London.
02:08Once the gateway to Scotland for the Vikings. Most of the population arrived 150 years ago
02:16when they were forced from the glens to the coast during the Highland Clearances.
02:23Fishing and farming have always been the mainstays of the economy.
02:27But that was all to change with the arrival of one of Britain's most ambitious scientific
02:32projects. The age of atomic power was in its infancy in the 1950s.
02:46It was born out of the nuclear weapons program. Scientists realized the heat
02:53generated in atomic reaction could be harnessed to create electricity.
03:00Industry everywhere is increasing its demand for power. In 20 years time, we
03:06shall be using three or four times what we do now. Post-war Britain was in the
03:11midst of an energy crisis. Demand for electricity was soaring while coal
03:17production was falling. But North Sea oil was yet to be discovered.
03:24Atomic energy was seen as the saviour.
03:29We saw it as the glamorous power source of the future and that really was the
03:35view of many of us that this was really something useful to be in doing. We'd
03:42like to be part of it. It seemed to be the Holy Grail at that time.
03:48Britain took the lead in this great new technology. In 1953, it built the world's
03:56first atomic power station at Calder Hall in Cumbria.
04:01This occasion will be an inspiration and encouragement for all who will continue this exciting enterprise here and elsewhere.
04:12But there was a problem.
04:16The uranium fuel used in nuclear reactors was imported. It was feared that as more
04:23countries developed atomic bombs and power stations, uranium would be in short
04:28supply. Reactors like Calder Hall used uranium inefficiently. A new type of
04:35atomic reactor known as the fast reactor was hailed as the solution. It could get
04:4260 times more energy from uranium and create new plutonium fuel at the same time.
04:47Fast reactors are effectively the alchemists dream. Like a coal fire
04:56where you shovel a ton of coal on and you get a ton and a half off. The fast
05:01reactor project would make it possible to produce power enough for Britain's
05:07needs for half a millennium or more rather than for half a century.
05:14The dream of the fast reactor was still at the laboratory stage.
05:21The next step was to build a large-scale test reactor. But it was risky technology.
05:29They were at the time dealing with something that was a bit of an unknown.
05:34There was still a lot to learn. So the idea was that if anything did go wrong,
05:41there would be the minimum of effect on the local community.
05:46They wanted a remote site just in case the unthinkable happened. After all,
05:55they couldn't site Dounreay in the middle of London or Glasgow.
06:02The hunt was on for a suitable location.
06:15By the 1950s, the population of Caithness and Sutherland had halved to just over 20,000
06:22in a hundred years. The fishing boom that made Wick the herring capital of Europe had gone.
06:31The mechanisation of farming meant it needed less labour.
06:36People were forced to leave the far north of Scotland in the search for work.
06:43The local MP, Sir David Robertson, believed he had the answer
06:48to both the county's plight and the atomic quest.
06:56David Robertson suddenly realised, here is an opportunity for Caithness,
07:01and according to the stories of the time, said,
07:05Caithness is the place you should come to point me in the direction of the person
07:10who has the power.
07:13With the fast reactor, we should be able to produce more fissile material than is consumed.
07:19That is because without a moderator...
07:22The man with the power was Sir Christopher Hinton, head of the fast reactor programme.
07:28Hinton was already considering locations in North Wales, Stranraer, Peterhead and Orkney.
07:36At the insistence of Robertson, he made a visit to the MP's constituency.
07:41They visited five sites, but none was suitable.
07:45The old military aerodrome at Doomeray was the last hope.
07:52He got out of the car and was almost like Napoleon on the fields of Waterloo,
07:58and he took off over the aerodrome.
08:01And that was the first hint that the colleagues got,
08:04that, ah, Hinton is fired with imagination and enthusiasm about this place.
08:12Lower Doomeray was one of the best farms in the county.
08:16Part of it had been turned into an aerodrome in 1941,
08:20but its only use during the war was for four emergency landings
08:23and to deliver a fishing rod to a commanding officer in Orkney.
08:31Ninety-year-old George Mackay worked at Lower Doomeray Farm as a boy
08:35and has lived on a croft beside it all his life.
08:40He remembers hearing about the impending arrival of an atom plant.
08:48We did begin to hear about this atomic energy business
08:52and as to whether it was going to produce more than it used.
08:58Oh, it was quite a thing, you know.
09:01Well, it was like a country folk was pretty suspicious of it,
09:05because all we had heard about it was atomic bombs on Japan and Africa.
09:12It did cause a bit of alarm.
09:17On 1st March 1954, the government announced that Doomeray
09:21was to be the home of Britain's fast reactor.
09:25Sir Christopher Hinton would have to work hard
09:27to win the support of the local community.
09:30He decided to hold a public meeting in Thurso.
09:34There was plenty of whisky and biscuits,
09:38and that would tune us all up, but we wouldn't object to the whole thing.
09:44They gave a great lecture, the man that was there,
09:47about neutrons and atoms and different things.
09:51You could boil a pint of water for the price of a match.
09:55All of what they said about it was the great benefit
09:58was going to be to the county, the much work it would give and all that.
10:02It was quite appealing.
10:04With the community now behind it, the planning application was a formality.
10:09Below an entry for a garage extension,
10:12the application consisted of one sentence in the Thurso County Council Register.
10:17The creation of an Atomic Energy Authority establishment
10:20at Doomeray in the parish of Ray.
10:23Estimated cost of works, £6 million.
10:28That went in on a Tuesday and was approved by the county council on a Thursday.
10:31Now that would take you 20 years if you could get that through today,
10:34but I think that reflected the circumstances at the time.
10:37The community wanted this project, it felt it needed the jobs,
10:41and there was also a national prestige about it.
10:44And probably trust as well.
10:46It doesn't exist today whereby this was the government,
10:49it was at the height of the Cold War,
10:51here was Britain leading the world and there was trust in the government,
10:55there was trust in the scientists.
11:02Construction began on one of Scotland's biggest ever engineering projects
11:06in March 1955.
11:10The quiet roads were suddenly alive
11:12with heavy lorries burdened with mysterious loads,
11:15and the moors were loud with the song of diesel engines.
11:20Construction gangs thrust weird shapes into the blustering Paisner sky
11:25and it became known that here at Doomeray
11:27a new kind of atomic power was going to be made
11:30in what they called a fast breeder reactor.
11:34A workforce of 3,000 arrived from all over Britain.
11:39The entire complex was to include atomic reactors, turbine halls,
11:44laboratories, offices and workshops.
11:49Work carried on 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
12:01It was a massive operation,
12:05and it was all done without all the health and safety regulations
12:09that are flying about today.
12:11We didn't have steel cap toe boots, we didn't have helmets,
12:15all we had was a pair of rubber boots and an oil skin jacket,
12:20that was our lot.
12:22And you'd get on with the job and that was it.
12:30It was all these hard working men that came up to Doomeray
12:33the softies, they didn't bother their back coming to Doomeray
12:37because they wouldn't have lasted the pace.
12:43There were so many of them working there at that time
12:46over the ground and what was being done,
12:48digging fountains and trenches and drains and building roads.
12:52They were just like ants from an anthill.
12:55You had to see it to believe it.
12:57At the centre of the site was one of the biggest spheres ever built.
13:01This would house the fast reactor.
13:04It was designed so that it would implode in the event of a major accident.
13:11Every one of the plates had to be accurately levelled up
13:14and lined before the welds were run.
13:16It was arduous work at these great heights,
13:19particularly when the winds reached gale force.
13:23It was a sense of great activity, of urgency
13:27and the place was gradually developing before you.
13:34This was a new way of energising power.
13:38It was supposed to be cheap
13:41and looking around here,
13:44you could see that it was cheap.
13:47It was supposed to be cheap
13:50and looking around the site
13:53and the amount of workmen that was there
13:56and equipment that was on the site,
13:59I thought to myself, well, it's going to be anything but cheap.
14:03At that time, the wages at Dunray
14:06was about at least five or six times higher or greater
14:11than what anybody else was earning locally, that's for sure.
14:17The welders were the elite of the trade.
14:20They made money hand over fist.
14:23These welds that they did were all x-rayed.
14:26If they failed, they didn't get paid.
14:28If they passed, they got paid
14:30and they got paid a handsome rate.
14:32They had the top rate on the site, there's no doubt about that.
14:36The greatest temptation, even when mum was in the police,
14:41was to change occupation at that time.
14:45That's the differential between the wages that we got
14:49and the wages that could be earned at Dunray at that particular time.
14:55By January 1958, the dome was nearly finished,
14:59but the heart of it was missing.
15:04The reactor vessel that would hold the atomic core
15:07was the most complicated stainless steel structure in the world.
15:15Built in the Midlands, it had to be shipped to Wick.
15:22This part of the journey was comparatively easy,
15:25but the road from Thurso to Dunray was more difficult
15:28as the builders of Fawes Bridge had not thought of such awkward loads
15:32and the road surface had to be raised for the vessel to clear the parapet.
15:37The vessel, still in its cradle, was taken alongside the sphere
15:42and upended, ready for lifting.
15:46Its installation required one last big effort from the construction team.
15:54It was there that day when they loaded in through the roof.
15:58Amazing how they did that.
16:02You would have hundreds of people
16:04telling you what you're not doing correctly nowadays,
16:07but these guys just put it together, lifted it up and loaded it in,
16:11all within a short space of time.
16:13And it went in precisely. It had to.
16:20Construction was now almost complete.
16:22The final bill for the whole development was £15 million,
16:26equivalent to nearly £100 million.
16:29It was now time to start recruiting the workforce.
16:43Can you remember going along this road, Donald?
16:46Oh, indeed. A few times.
16:49Yeah.
16:51And there in front of us is the Dunray camp.
16:55Edgar Fisher and Donald Sutherland
16:57were among the first flood of scientists
16:59to arrive at what they thought was the end of the earth.
17:05My friend and I had come from Dumfries.
17:10We had the prospect of a job at Dunray.
17:14Dunray, we had never understood what it really was.
17:20Dunray, we had never understood what it really was until we came.
17:27They were enticed to the extreme north with the promise of a house.
17:32But their new homes weren't ready.
17:34They had to rough it in the old airfield sleeping quarters
17:37along with the construction workers.
17:40Our first impression was absolutely dismal.
17:46I can remember looking out the window of my room
17:52and looking at the feeling of desolation and saying,
17:57oh, I wish I had never come here.
18:02And yet we've stayed.
18:04Stayed on?
18:05Yeah.
18:08I think our hut was just over there
18:11because we could hear the buses going past the window at night.
18:19After working in the gasworks in Glasgow,
18:22it was full of grime and dirt
18:25and then you come into this lovely long corridor
18:29with guys scrubbing the floors and polishing
18:32and everything was so clean and pristine compared to what I was used to.
18:38So I thought it was really a great place to work.
18:41I was really enjoying the work.
18:43And then coming up to the camp,
18:46oh, well, it was like going back to National Service again, you know.
18:55And out away o' Dunray there's stirring times in store
18:58for now a lot of scientists arrive,
19:01twa thousand men and more.
19:03The berrapin, the betapin, with their pity hammers chappin.
19:07I'll split and caten his atomies by Dunray's lonely shore.
19:24In nearby Thurso, a transformation was taking place.
19:29The population of the ancient town almost trebled
19:32from 3,000 to over 8,000.
19:38The Atomic Energy Authority couldn't build houses fast enough.
19:50All of the streets were given Viking names,
19:52a reminder that Thurso was once home to another invasion.
19:59There's some folks smiling at the thought of that invading throne.
20:03The pubs will all be busy and the nightclubs going strong.
20:07And the merchants will be winking from their thinking
20:10o' a clink and o' all that soothing cellar that'll come their way for long.
20:16The locals had nicknames for these new arrivals.
20:20They got tagged variously, ukuleles,
20:26the atomics or the atomicers.
20:30Some of us were viewed with a little bit of surprise.
20:34There were people walking about with briefcases and things like that.
20:38And this wasn't the sort of thing that was commonly observed
20:42in the streets of Thurso and Wick.
20:47I went to look a fish up and I bought some fish and I thought,
20:51my God, that's dear for a fishing place, you know.
20:55So I walked straight round to another fish shop and I said to them,
20:59I put the fish on their scales, I said,
21:01tell me something, how much would you charge me for that fish?
21:05And she told me.
21:06I said, well, I've just been ripped off round the corner.
21:09And I said, I understand that there are two prices here,
21:12one for the atomics and one for the locals.
21:17A lot of them, their wives didn't like it.
21:19There was no supermarkets and they would go back.
21:21And a lot of them really enjoyed it.
21:23And the people that enjoyed it got involved with the local people,
21:26the local crofters and farmers.
21:28And they would, I've seen, come out lifting tatties
21:30or giving a hand with the harvest or giving a hand with different things.
21:34And, yeah, it was new blood into the county.
21:38Where loogs'll soon be tortured, we accents strange and queer.
21:42But we're building a new schoolie, and when their bairns appear,
21:45we'll get crackin' on their squackin'
21:47and try to get them tackin' in the pure, melodious accents
21:51that we've ae been used to hear.
21:54Because of the influx of these highly educated engineers
21:58and scientists to come and work at Dunray,
22:01obviously at school that was reflected in their kids' education.
22:07So the standards at Thursday High School improved dramatically.
22:11When the atomics got on the scene, you would always try to beat them.
22:14You would try to knock them off their perch.
22:18They always had a feeling they were better than us,
22:20and probably we thought they were better than us.
22:23A lot of them had the marble down their throat with the accent they came with.
22:27But we had to probably make them understand what we were saying,
22:30and we had to put a wee bit of marble down our throats and all.
22:34Dunray may have provided us with a long-term career
22:39in nuclear engineering and research,
22:42but it killed off the Thurso accent.
22:46Far fae a city's busy streets,
22:48fiddly crafters do to fill their hours o' leisure
22:51when their job o' work is through.
22:53If they have no television, they'll be swishin' o' the fishin'
22:56for radioactive cuttings in the rocks o' blowball do.
23:06Back at Dunray, the pressure was on to get the fast reactor up and running.
23:12The vital ingredient, the consignment of uranium, had arrived.
23:19It was my job to mastermind the transport
23:22of the first significant amount to go to the site.
23:26I well remember being reminded by my bosses
23:30that I was playing with the lifeblood of the country.
23:34The arrival of uranium meant the real work of the reactor could begin.
23:39Its atoms can be split to release energy.
23:43This process of fission is the crux of nuclear power.
23:48Let us examine nuclear fission again.
23:51The bombarding neutron strikes the nucleus,
23:54which begins to split into two.
23:57Radiation is emitted.
24:01If they're densely packed,
24:03all the released neutrons can cause further fissions,
24:06more and more, ending with an explosion.
24:10At a certain concentration, the number of hits balances the misses.
24:15This is the moment of criticality.
24:19Manipulating nuclear reactions is precarious.
24:22The radiation produced can destroy living tissue.
24:26And if the experiment is pushed too far,
24:29the consequences could be disastrous.
24:33Well, we tended not to be apprehensive in those days, you know.
24:37We were young.
24:40It was a different world.
24:42People were doing all sorts of dangerous things.
24:45You have to remember that miners were risking their lives every day.
24:49We tended to take risks of a sort.
24:51The benefits of getting safe nuclear power going on a massive scale,
24:57it was worth it.
25:03By November 1959,
25:05they were ready to take the fast reactor to the point of criticality.
25:11It had never been attempted before on a fast reactor of this size.
25:16The 80-strong team had been working round the clock,
25:19making the final preparations.
25:22Over ten years of research was about to be put to the test.
25:33Well, this was the control panel of the DFR.
25:40John Kirk was assistant operations manager of the Dune Ray fast reactor.
25:45One vital thing, the red knob over there,
25:49one touch on that and the reactor shut down completely.
25:55Several others had been working all night
26:00and everything had gone, not very quickly, but according to plan.
26:07And it was time to start raising the fuel rods into the core to go critical.
26:22There were one or two people who forecast doom
26:26who said that the whole of Caithness would become depopulated
26:31and it would become a nuclear desert.
26:37I can remember hearing that certain plant managers had asked to go and leave.
26:45There was a general air of uncertainty.
26:49Everybody had complete faith in this fast reactor,
26:54but was their faith so well-founded
26:59that they could bear to be on site when the place starts up?
27:05In the control room, they were raising the fuel rods further into the core.
27:11Everyone was watching the physicists.
27:13It was their job to keep a close eye on the neutron count.
27:18This was their only way of measuring what was happening in the reactor's vault.
27:24The first objective, of course, was to get the reactor just operating
27:30at very low powers, milliwatts of power,
27:35rather than the eventual megawatts that we were going for.
27:43By about 11 o'clock, with a very cautious approach, balance was achieved.
27:51The whole atmosphere was one of, we've done it.
27:58It was a real climax to a tremendous amount of work.
28:05At 10.52 on the morning of 14th November 1959,
28:09the fast reactor dream became a reality.
28:13It's a milestone because that was when this piece of metal,
28:20concrete, becomes a living thing.
28:25Just four years after the first foundation had been laid,
28:29the sphere became the world's first electricity-producing fast reactor.
28:35The fact that the fast reactor had proved itself
28:40was a big relief to the politicians.
28:45The fast reactor represented the ultimate,
28:50and that was a success.
28:54The triumph at the Doonray fast reactor was a feather in the cap for Britain.
29:00They were ahead of the French, Russians and Americans
29:03in the quest to produce the supreme nuclear power station.
29:07But the public were largely oblivious to the accomplishments of the plant.
29:12It was the height of the Cold War.
29:14America and Russia were stockpiling nuclear warheads.
29:18Other countries were eager to develop the technology.
29:22Nuclear research establishments were top secret.
29:27Some of the great events of Doonray,
29:30like achieving criticality,
29:34were not well publicized at the time
29:37because that was a different era we were living in.
29:40We were in the age of great security, of denoticism, various things like that.
29:46So when great events took place at Doonray,
29:49they were not very well publicized, which was a great shame
29:52because they were notable achievements in the history of Doonray.
29:58This was also the era of rapid scientific advance.
30:03The superpowers were fighting for supremacy.
30:11Just two years after criticality at Doonray,
30:14the world's largest nuclear power plant was destroyed.
30:19The world's largest nuclear power plant was destroyed.
30:24Just two years after criticality at Doonray,
30:27the first man went into space.
30:33Anything seemed possible.
30:42Harold Wilson's famous white heat of technology speech
30:45was a call to arms for British science and industry.
30:49What we need is new industries,
30:52and it will be the job of the next government to see that we get them.
30:56And this means mobilizing scientific research in this country
31:00in producing a new technological breakthrough,
31:03the Britain that is going to be forged in the white heat of this revolution.
31:09Doonray was recognized as an example of Britain's technological prowess.
31:15The dome was even featured on a postage stamp.
31:20You might say we were worshipping at the shrine of science.
31:25We lived for the fast reactor.
31:29And to have a reactor which can work and which can recycle its fuel,
31:36that means you can give to a nation the power to survive and thrive.
31:49In the far north of Scotland,
31:51the pressure was on to take the fast reactor program up a gear.
31:58Phase two was to build a reactor ten times more powerful.
32:08In 1966, the first sod was dug for the prototype fast reactor.
32:20This prototype was to be the ultimate test for fast reactor technology.
32:26If it was a success,
32:28it would pave the way for a generation of advanced nuclear power stations.
32:42I would say that in 1966 we had every expectation
32:47that we could continue to demonstrate to the world
32:50that we had the lead in fast reactors.
32:57The increased scale of the reactor was matched by its complexity.
33:03Once again, the Doonray team found themselves entering into uncharted territory.
33:10Each day produced another challenge.
33:13You didn't know what you were going to meet.
33:18The difficult challenge is with nuclear.
33:21It's got to be absolutely spot on the work.
33:24There's no second chances. It's got to be right.
33:27You couldn't get away with nothing.
33:29If it wasn't right, it didn't go. It was as simple as that.
33:32The giant reactor achieved criticality in 1974.
33:37But the electricity generating machinery kept breaking down.
33:42The scientists and technicians were forced to take a back seat
33:46and let the engineers take over.
33:50You'd be standing in your head trying to get a well done.
33:53You'd be jammed down in a corner and this type of thing.
33:57You had to try to get a well done as fast as you could
34:00because radiation was quite high.
34:02So you'd in and out very quickly and you still had to be right
34:05because you didn't want to go back in again.
34:08There were constant setbacks with this untested technology.
34:12They were fighting to keep the project on track.
34:16Of course, time was always against us.
34:19We were an experimental establishment,
34:21so we were to carry out an experiment
34:23and we wanted to prove that this thing could work.
34:34Every department faced a monumental challenge.
34:39In the fuel cycle area where fuels were manufactured and reprocessed,
34:44they were now dealing with ten times more nuclear material.
34:50The new reactor was also running on plutonium,
34:53the most powerful fuel ever made,
34:56but 30,000 times more hazardous than uranium.
35:03It took us six years to modify the plants,
35:07build all the new laboratories
35:09because it had just been an enriched uranium plant before.
35:12Enriched uranium is quite a nice benign material.
35:16It doesn't need anything like the containment that plutonium does.
35:20But here we were now dealing with plutonium,
35:22so everything had to change.
35:23All the analytical methods, the laboratories,
35:25it just didn't touch one part of the site.
35:28It touched everywhere.
35:33I had the doubtful honour of handling the first gram
35:39of pure plutonium metal that arrived at Doonray.
35:44It was just a greyish metal
35:47and it had this astonishing activity.
35:52Even that small amount, you could feel it warm even through the gloves.
35:57It was warm because of the activity in it.
36:02People were aghast at the thought of touching anything with their bare hands.
36:09It was a terrifying, absolutely mind-boggling experience.
36:16But then it became part of the regular routine of life
36:24and you thought nothing about it.
36:27By 1977 they had overcome most of the major difficulties.
36:31The prototype fast reactor was up and running.
36:34It would soon be providing electricity for a quarter of a million people.
36:39The vision of cheap, plentiful energy was within reach.
36:44But in the early hours of May 10th, 1977,
36:48they were about to be rudely awakened from their dream.
36:59That night, through the night, when the explosion happened,
37:02quite a bang it was, you know.
37:06The house shook and all that,
37:08but we didn't think very much about it at the time.
37:13There was such an explosion on the site,
37:15most of the people jumped in their cars and drove home.
37:19In the middle of the night, when it happened.
37:22The explosion happened at a nuclear waste pit.
37:26A 65-metre deep shaft had been used since the end of construction
37:30for storing radioactive rubbish.
37:33If this deadly cocktail escaped, it could have disastrous consequences.
37:42Frank Sinclair was the health and safety supervisor on duty on the night.
37:46He and his team were the first to the scene.
37:50When we got to the shaft, we found total chaos.
37:55Chaos in so much that the front of the shaft control room was gone,
38:01it was blown in.
38:03The valve on top of the shaft here
38:06was split in half, sitting over in the far corner.
38:10The surrounding fence work was all gone,
38:14the security fence was gone.
38:16We found that scaffold poles were lying on the beach,
38:21lead bricks were lying down on the beach,
38:24and basically it was an utter shambles.
38:29The shaft had never been built to hold nuclear waste.
38:33It was a crudely drilled hole in the rock
38:35that was used during construction
38:37when bringing rubble up from the shoreline.
38:40Waste facilities had been overlooked when the plant was built.
38:44Against the advice of geologists,
38:46the Scottish office approved the use of the shaft.
38:49It was now full of some of the worst radioactive waste on the site.
38:56The concrete hatch on the top of the shaft
38:58had been completely blown off by the explosion.
39:02The plug weighed something of the order of seven tonne,
39:05and to eject a seven tonne plug,
39:08you need a fair force to do that, you know.
39:10And the plug was actually broken in half,
39:12or you could see the reinforcing bars in the plug.
39:16So therefore, there obviously must have been considerable force to do this.
39:21It was certainly a shock in so much that
39:23knowing what was down in the shaft
39:26and the potential for a serious on-site contamination incident
39:33was quite high, you know.
39:35It's only by the grace of God that we didn't have,
39:37say, somebody in the control room
39:39checking our water levels
39:41that, you know, could have been killed, you know, or certainly injured.
39:46I would certainly say it's certainly the most serious thing
39:48that I was, in all the 36 years that I've been at Doonray.
39:53An internal Doonray inquiry found that
39:55sodium had mistakenly been dumped down the shaft.
39:59This had reacted with water to produce an explosive mixture.
40:03Radioactive material was spread across a large area of the site.
40:07Luckily, no-one was affected.
40:10At the time, the plant described it as a minor incident.
40:16It was in the local paper,
40:18saying that it was just a chemical sort of explosion.
40:25It was not anything radiation at all.
40:28It was actually washing soda.
40:30It was supposed to be that it exploded in the shaft.
40:33And, oh, yeah, so I just happened to mention it.
40:36My old granny had worked with washing soda,
40:39and she never blew the roof of a house.
40:42And, of course, it caused quite a laugh.
40:44But, I mean, when you think of things like that,
40:46come on with stories like that, you know,
40:48it made you question it,
40:50question what they were talking about.
40:56Doonray remained a closed world.
40:58It was the only place in the world
41:01Doonray remained a closed world in the late 1970s,
41:05but it was becoming clear that a price was to be paid
41:08for its groundbreaking achievements.
41:12At Doonray in the early days,
41:14they made real significant scientific breakthroughs.
41:19Working there in the early years
41:22must have given people such a buzz
41:25that you can just imagine the reaction
41:27when somebody came along and said,
41:29hmm, we've got a bit of radioactive waste to deal with here,
41:31where are we going to put it?
41:33And you can see how it led to them saying,
41:36well, I think just shove it down that hole over there.
41:38So that the whole thing,
41:41what with the vision,
41:43people's desire to do good for others,
41:46the buzz from getting the scientific breakthroughs,
41:49and the Official Secrets Act,
41:51which meant never having to say you were sorry,
41:53really led to the culture of neglect,
41:57which is almost the other side of the coin
42:00of the ambition and the success that Doonray had.
42:06There were more problems to come.
42:09Throughout the history of Doonray,
42:11routine monitoring of the surrounding countryside
42:14had always taken place.
42:16Regular checks were made of livestock and land.
42:20Herbie Lyall worked at Doonray for nearly 30 years
42:23as a health and safety monitor.
42:28In 1984 he was part of a team
42:30who were sent to survey Sandside Beach,
42:32two miles from the plant.
42:35What they found would plague Doonray for decades to come.
42:49We come onto the beach at Sandside
42:52and we came across a sample,
42:54a particle of radiation level,
42:56it was very high,
42:58put a bit of scotch tape on the sand
43:01to pick it up,
43:02and that's how we picked it up and put it in.
43:04But you couldn't see it,
43:05no more than a sand grain.
43:07You couldn't see it,
43:08couldn't pick it out and see that was a particle
43:11because it was exactly the same as the sand.
43:14We took it back
43:15and to see the level it was on it,
43:18it was a swear word.
43:20It begins with F.
43:23I'll not say where it was,
43:25but that was where it was.
43:27Because it was a shock to them too,
43:29they didn't expect anything like this on a beach.
43:34Radioactive particles had been detected
43:36on the shoreline of Doonray a year earlier.
43:39Now these had spread outside the site.
43:44The particles had come from fuel reprocessing.
43:48When grinding down used fuel rods,
43:50radioactive metal shavings
43:52had accidentally entered the drainage system.
43:56The shavings had been flushed out to sea.
44:03Some carelessness went on,
44:05but it was never talked about very much.
44:13Somebody opened something wrongly at some stage
44:17and didn't let on.
44:21That's about all we know about it,
44:23know nothing about it really.
44:26Over the next 20 years,
44:28more and more radioactive particles were to be found.
44:32The chances of coming in contact with one are very remote,
44:36but they do pose a health risk.
44:39The most radioactive ones found at the shoreline of Doonray,
44:42if ingested, could be fatal.
44:47The people there didn't want to know.
44:50No matter what you've done,
44:52they just didn't want to know.
44:57This is our environment.
44:59This belongs to Doonray.
45:01They're no hesitant because we gave it to them
45:03to build this plant.
45:05And that's all there is to it.
45:06They know right and do what they did at all.
45:09Know right whatever.
45:13It annoyed me in terms of the reputation
45:16the place was ruined, really.
45:19It spoiled the reputation of Doonray
45:22as a competent working place.
45:37By the mid-1980s,
45:39opposition to nuclear energy was growing worldwide.
45:42Fears were spreading about the potential dangers of the industry.
45:48I do kind of subscribe to the view
45:50of what can go wrong will go wrong, generally.
45:52If you're going to use a very dangerous technology,
45:56then the chances are that at some point
45:58that technology will go wrong because we're all fallible.
46:01I make mistakes, you make mistakes,
46:04everybody out there makes mistakes.
46:07Doonray was about to get his first taste of opposition.
46:10There were plans for European countries
46:12to collaborate on a fast reactor programme.
46:15Germany and France were already developing their own reactors.
46:18Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands
46:20wanted to invest in the nuclear technology of the future.
46:25Doonray would import all their used fuel
46:28and reprocess it on site.
46:32Doonray was proposed as the place
46:35where reprocessing for fast reactors for the future
46:39from the whole of Europe should happen.
46:41So fuel would be brought in from whatever countries
46:45the fast reactors were going to be in
46:48and it would be brought into one of the ports,
46:52probably around Easter Ross.
46:54That was what was being proposed at the time.
46:58Many in the North East were worried
47:00about being on a nuclear waste transport route.
47:04The fishermen of Orkney and Shetland
47:06were concerned about their fishing waters.
47:12In April 1986, the government was forced to hold a public inquiry.
47:16It lasted 95 days.
47:20Lorraine Mann was a housewife bringing up three young children.
47:23She was the only member of her protest group who could attend.
47:28I ended up getting thrown in
47:31with no kind of experience in this sort of stuff at all.
47:35At the deep end to the biggest public inquiry
47:38Scotland had ever seen
47:40and having to try and keep up
47:42with the scientific and technical side of things.
47:47Despite the protests,
47:49the expansion was eventually given the go-ahead,
47:52promising a bright future for Doonray.
47:56But the plans were overtaken by events,
47:591,400 miles away.
48:06The altitude is 220 metres.
48:10We're approaching the block.
48:12Turn it on!
48:15Higher! Higher!
48:17Hold this position! Hold it!
48:23Chernobyl was the world's worst nuclear accident.
48:2731 were killed instantly.
48:30Thousands affected.
48:36It marked a turning point for the nuclear industry.
48:53The disaster sent shockwaves through Caithness.
48:58The European collaboration collapsed.
49:02Anti-nuclear feelings strengthened.
49:06There was trouble ahead for Doonray.
49:09When the British government looked for public spending cuts,
49:12the fast reactor came into their sights.
49:16It became fairly evident,
49:18late 87, probably, 88, early 88,
49:22that something was afoot.
49:25You get suspicious when you get questions like,
49:29how many men do you think it would be required to run this site
49:33if it was closed down?
49:36Just a gentle hint that they've got something else on the horizon.
49:44In July 1988,
49:46the government announced that Doonray was to close.
49:50Fast reactors may be needed in the future,
49:53but not in the lifetime of the Doonray pioneers.
49:57The uranium shortage that created the need for fast reactors
50:01had not transpired.
50:04After 30 years of research and development,
50:07their expertise was redundant.
50:13The fast reactor dream was over.
50:18Suddenly, this wonderful, altruistic site
50:22that had fed them well,
50:25provided good wages, provided good training,
50:28provided many opportunities,
50:30this well was starting to dry up,
50:33and there was great concern in the place.
50:38Over 2,000 jobs were expected to be lost.
50:44Almost a fifth of all employment in Caithness.
50:48It was doom and gloom all round.
50:54You know, what are we going to do next?
50:57What's the next move?
50:59We were all looking over our shoulder
51:02and seeing if there was anything else we had to move away.
51:05Oil industry was fair enough.
51:07A few people went there and all the rest did.
51:10But it was doom and gloom, there's no doubt about that.
51:14Doonray put up a fight to try and reverse the government's decision,
51:18but there was to be no reprieve.
51:22The prototype fast reactor was given only six more years of life,
51:27and it would not be a peaceful end.
51:32The next decade would prove to be the hardest in Doonray's history,
51:37as it came under intense scrutiny.
51:41People began to understand and comprehend
51:43what kind of legacy the nuclear industry was leaving behind.
51:47The spotlight's then on Doonray, issues are magnified.
51:50The sensitivity around a place like Doonray,
51:53both political and media, suddenly changes.
51:55And over the next decade, it becomes a controversial facility.
51:59There was outrage amongst opponents when Doonray was proposed
52:02as the store for all of the UK's nuclear waste.
52:10A councillor's visit in 1993 caused alarm
52:13when they found low-level waste pits in disarray.
52:19Doonray was the only facility in the UK
52:22to have a nuclear power plant.
52:25Low-level waste pits in disarray.
52:33Doonray's managers brought in reprocessing work
52:36from around the world to keep the plant alive.
52:46But finally, in 2001,
52:49the government ordered that the whole site be shut down.
52:55The end of Doonray
53:00There's a silver lining for Keith Ness.
53:30Opening the nuclear site has thrown the county an economic lifeline.
53:352,500 people are currently employed taking Doonray apart.
53:42As many as worked there while it was operating.
53:47It's estimated it will take another 30 years and £3 billion to complete the clean-up.
53:52It's just a bit strange, you're taking it apart and there's people, myself included,
54:04that built the plant and, you know, a tear can appear in the eye, you say well all this
54:09hard work we did here now has all been taken apart and it's sad.
54:14Doonray's range of nuclear activities make it one of the most complicated decommissioning
54:19projects in the world.
54:22The early reactors, the early plants, there was little or no thought put into how you
54:27take these facilities apart, that wasn't part of the thinking.
54:31If you go back to the early days as well there wasn't the degree of attention to radioactive
54:34waste that there is today.
54:41During his 50 year history, Doonray has trained over 1,000 apprentices in engineering and
54:47science.
54:54Now their sons and grandsons are being trained in decommissioning.
55:00It's their job to deal with the aftermath of this giant nuclear experiment.
55:08When it comes to decommissioning, if you look at Doonray, all that effectively is waste
55:14and now needs to get put back in boxes.
55:18The intermediate level waste, the long-lived waste, the waste that's hazardous, that requires
55:22thick shielding, that's hazardous for thousands of years.
55:25There will be in the region of about 100 double-decker buses worth, equivalent in terms of volume.
55:32That will need to be stored, that will need to be parked at Doonray in boxes in big thick
55:36sealed above ground stores at Doonray and no stores will stay there until society, until
55:43politicians, until governments decide that it wants it moved or it wants it disposed
55:48of in some other facility.
55:50The plan is it will stay there until that time.
55:55Some of the most complicated jobs are cleaning up the mistakes of the past.
56:00The removal of the contents of the waste shaft which exploded will take 25 years and cost
56:06£29 million.
56:11The local beaches are regularly monitored for particles.
56:15Fifty-one have now been found at nearby Sandside, over 200 on the Doonray shoreline.
56:22Another particle was recently discovered at a beach 20 miles from the plant and the Atomic
56:27Energy Authority admit that there may be hundreds of thousands of them in the seabed.
56:34There is currently no solution to the problem.
56:40There will be a nuclear legacy on that site forever.
56:45There will be areas that remain contaminated and there are aspects of the contamination
56:51that it's very difficult to see them dealing with effectively.
56:57By the end of decommissioning in 2036, the dome will be the only building left on the
57:03site.
57:05It will be preserved as a monument to Britain's fast reactor experiment.
57:17For all this Scotch is good land is anybody's guess, but we'll see it even if there shall
57:22be a popular address.
57:24This Kent land by a Pentland will soon be a real Kent land and we'll have a changelog
57:30calder and call it League success.
57:35If I died tomorrow, I don't need a gravestone, I'll get a big ball which I put the base in
57:41for as my memorial.
57:45It's easy to look back now and criticise and in hindsight it always is, but at the time
57:51you were doing a job of getting along with it, pushing back the frontiers of science
57:56and trying to be the first in the world.
58:01I hope it won't all prove to be in vain and indeed I shall finish my life no doubt still
58:08thinking that and hoping that.
58:11It's sad to think that it's all going to end somewhere.
58:18Will the last person put out the light and lock the gate?
58:24At the dawn of a new millennium, we face another energy crisis.
58:30Nuclear is back on the agenda.
58:34One location being considered for a new reactor is Caithness.
58:41It's a nuclear power plant.
58:44Nuclear is back on the agenda.
58:47One location being considered for a new reactor is Caithness.
58:54Just about everything you ever needed to know about atomic energy next on BBC4
58:59and later the greatest mathematical minds of all time driven to the edge of insanity.
59:04Dangerous Knowledge is at 1am.