4 ms·

It would have been a lot worse without "Cockcroft's Folly" - massive filters built on top of the "chimneys" that caught radioactive crud coming up the stack. T

It would have been a lot worse without "Cockcroft's Folly" - massive filters built on top of the "chimneys" that caught radioactive crud coming up the stack. These reactors weren't build for nuclear power or anything, they were built to create the right kind of nuclear materials for weapons. They were essentially a couple of bloody great big nuclear bonfires! He also along with Ernest Walton developed the Cockcroft-Walton multiplier, which is a clever arrangement of capacitors and diodes that produce a very high voltage from an AC source. Initially these were used in "atom smashing" cyclotrons, but came to be used in every CRT television you've ever seen.

Mindwipe 3y ago
Indeed, people should always bear in mind Windscale was a nuclear weapons facility hidden inside a power plant than a genuine attempt at a power station.
- Maakuth 3y ago
  From what I've read, I don't think there was any sort of power plant around even for pretense.
  - ianburrell 3y ago
    I think the worlds first commercial nuclear reactors had just started operating at the time of the accident. But they were separate and built later.
pfdietz 3y ago
There is a somewhat similar technology for LWRs: systems that filter soluble fission products (including iodine in second generation systems) from steam so the steam can be vented from the containment structure in an accident. These would have been very useful at Fukushima. https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1224/ML12248A021.pdf https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1224/ML12248A021.pdf The Cockcroft-Walton scheme was not for cyclotrons, but rather for a simple linear potential drop accelerator. Cyclotrons build up the energy of particles over many iterations, so they don't need that high a voltage.
dang 3y ago
There's a good article about that which was discussed here: Windscale Piles: Cockcroft's Follies avoided nuclear disaster - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8558045 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8558045 - Nov 2014 (15 comments)

Mindwipe 3y ago

Indeed, people should always bear in mind Windscale was a nuclear weapons facility hidden inside a power plant than a genuine attempt at a power station.

Maakuth 3y ago
From what I've read, I don't think there was any sort of power plant around even for pretense.
- ianburrell 3y ago
  I think the worlds first commercial nuclear reactors had just started operating at the time of the accident. But they were separate and built later.

pfdietz 3y ago

There is a somewhat similar technology for LWRs: systems that filter soluble fission products (including iodine in second generation systems) from steam so the steam can be vented from the containment structure in an accident. These would have been very useful at Fukushima. https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1224/ML12248A021.pdf https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1224/ML12248A021.pdf The Cockcroft-Walton scheme was not for cyclotrons, but rather for a simple linear potential drop accelerator. Cyclotrons build up the energy of particles over many iterations, so they don't need that high a voltage.

dang 3y ago

There's a good article about that which was discussed here: Windscale Piles: Cockcroft's Follies avoided nuclear disaster - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8558045 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8558045 - Nov 2014 (15 comments)