COVER STORY
The first ever wall chart was BEPO, The British Experimental Pile Operation. This research reactor located at Harwell comprised of a 26-foot (9m) cube of graphite containing 40 tonnes of uranium. Source: Nuclear Engineering International
plants the global nuclear industry has ever known. They could have built more technically advanced plants at any point in that series. But instead chose to take the benefits of a large scale fleet, which has since served their nation well. This strategy came together with the chance to roll even small improvements out across the fleet with just one safety case made to the regulators, and with improved servicing and repair strategies in place. As the years have gone on, the industry everywhere has
woken up to the advantages of standardisation – and we see the epitome of that philosophy now in the move to SMRs.
Technology It’s hard to imagine today the very basic technologies which were used to design the early reactors. Drawings made by hand on drawing boards. Sharing a design with someone outside that office meant getting copies made and posted to them. Having a discussion with someone outside your own office meant a landline phone call – assuming you could ensure both parties were at their phones at the same time – and exchange of written memos or letters taking multiple days, or else a journey to meet face to face. Research meant spending ages poring over documents in archives or libraries. And someone could only look at the documents which were physically in front of them. Nowadays, of course, electronic technology means people
all over the world can review and comment within minutes of an idea being floated or a draft design being shared. Information and expertise are always instantly available – wherever one is in the world.
Pace and scale of delivery Perhaps counter-intuitively, given how much our electronic technology has improved the speed of communication and sharing of information, the pace of progress back in those days was very impressive by today’s standards. The world’s first commercial nuclear power plant, Calder Hall, began its design process in earnest in 1952 on the orders of the then Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Construction began in
1953, and the reactor was delivering electricity to the grid by the end of 1956. Design, construction and commissioning took less than four years. Read that sentence again – it’s not a misprint – and contrast with the pace of nuclear plant delivery today, when we have all the benefits of modern technology, instant communication, decades of prior experience and an established nuclear supply chain. Perhaps in some ways the lack of technical means for a
huge swathe of stakeholders (including the local communities) to discuss and debate decisions was an accelerating factor. Designers, regulators and constructors were trusted to know their stuff, make the right decisions and get the plant built in the context of a national mission to rebuild energy infrastructure and power the regeneration of the economy. It isn’t only the pace of delivery which seems to have gone in the wrong direction since the beginning of the nuclear age. Capacity to deliver at scale has done the same. In the decade from the late 1950s to the late 1960s, the UK built no fewer than 21 nuclear reactors. As already noted, this was not a “cookie cutter” production line – every variant of power station was different from its predecessors.
Reputation
Back in the 1950s public perception of the nuclear sector was almost universally positive. Atomic weapons had helped to end the Second World War and the idea of harnessing the power of the atom for peaceful purposes was seen as a logical consequence. As time progressed, Harold Wilson talked of the UK benefitting from the “white heat of technology” in a famous address in 1963, which is credited as a major factor in his election as Prime Minister the following year. There is neither the time, nor probably the need, to explain here how that positive perception of nuclear energy has changed over the years. Events such as Three Mile Island, Chornobyl and Fukushima pushed nuclear to the front pages of the newspapers, as have – more recently – the conflicts which impact on nuclear facilities in places such as Ukraine and Iran. Concerns have been raised over potential links between nuclear plants and the health of local residents,
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