Britain's Nuclear Secrets Archives

Vitrified Nuclear Debris | Atomic Half-Life

Encasing the most hazardous and toxic radioactive waste is seen as the only possible way of storing this long-term problem. The vitrified waste must be safe for generations to come.

Professor Jim Al-Khalili conducts a simple experiment to demonstrate the half-life of radioactive material.

Radioactive Waste | Reprocessing, Recycling and Storage | Thorp

Radioactive Waste is a huge problem facing the nuclear industry. Thorp is a recent reprocessing plant at Sellafeld designed to treat much of this toxic mess.

Mounting public concern was real and putting increasing pressure on the nuclear industry to clean up its act.

Windscale Meltdown | Cockcroft’s Folly | Tom Tuohy

The Windscale fire of 1957 and catastrophic radiation escape did nothing the quell the fears of a very doubtful public.

The nuclear incident could have been much worse but for the foresight of the brilliant John Cockcroft.

Professor Jim Al-Khalili | What is Radioactivity? | Alpha, Beta and Gamma Radiation

Professor Jim Al-Khalili discusses the three main types of radiation and demonstrated how damaging it can be by placing a house-plant in a radiation furnace.

Under a microscope the radiation damage is clear and horrific.

Calder Hall | Nuclear Power Generation | Electricity Production

Calder Hall was the first experiment in power generation from a nuclear reactor. Jim Al-Khalili gets unprecedented access inside.

Calder Hall has, without doubt, been a scientific success story. It proved that nuclear power really worked. But just over a year after it opened, this age of optimism came to an end.

Otto Hahn | Splitting the Atom | Nuclear Age

In 1938, German chemist Otto Hahn conducted an experiment using uranium to discover what happened when the nucleus was hit by a neutron.

Within just four weeks of Otto Hahn splitting the first uranium atom, a scientist in Washington drew a diagram on a blackboard. The diagram was of a new kind of weapon, and the scientist was Robert Oppenheimer.

Sellafield | Britain’s Nuclear Secrets | Inside the Atomic Industry

Professor Jim Al-Khalili takes us inside the highly-secretive Sellafield to discover the hidden story of Britain’s nuclear secrets and atomic arms race.

The successes the failures and the near catastrophes of the nuclear industry in Britain are revealed in this fascinating BBC documentary

British Atom Bomb | Windscale | Plutonium | Professor Jim Al-Khalili

The Windscale Nuclear Reactor at Sellafield was built to produce plutonium for the first British Atom Bomb. Britain had joined the nuclear arms race.

And, in 1952, the atom bomb was detonated in Montebello Island in Western Australia.

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