Tim Harford

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Tim Harford

Pushkin. A nasty flu bug was going round Cumberland in the northwest of England. Tom Toohey hadn't got it, but his wife and kids had, so he'd taken the day off to look after them. At five o' clock in the afternoon, he got a call from work. Can you come in? There's a fire. Good God, said Toohey. He got in his car and drove the quiet country lanes to his workplace. Cumberland was remote, but not that remote. There were farms and villages. People lived there. That was A concern because Tuih's workplace was a nuclear reactor. How bad was it exactly for a nuclear reactor to be on fire? Toohey wasn't sure. Nuclear technology was still very new in 1957. Only just over a decade had passed since the first nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The nuclear accidents at Three Mile island and Chernobyl lay decades in the future. As Toohey later reflected, mankind had never faced anything like this ever before. So no, Tom Toohey wasn't sure exactly how bad it was that the nuclear reactor was on fire, but clearly it wasn't good. How much radioactivity might leak out if the fire got worse, how much might be leaking out already? The wife of another worker recalls getting a phone call at about the same time as Toohey was called in. Where's the baby? Asked the worker. In his pram, said the wife. In the garden getting some sun. Bring him inside, said the worker. Close the doors and the windows. Oh, and lock the hens in the hen house. Then don't go out. I won't be home tonight. Touhy arrives at Windscale. It's a collection of stark concrete buildings on the coast with two massive chimneys. It was built in a hurry just a few years ago. Why the hurry? The United States and the Soviet Union both had the nuclear bomb. The British government wanted the bomb, too. Besides, nuclear energy was new, exciting and full of possibilities, as the UK Atomic Energy Authority was eager to make clear in its promotional films. Windscale is unique. It is science fiction intruding on our sober lives. And it is a very great producer of plutonium, the pure atomic fuel for both industrial and weapons projects. Toohey thinks he'd better see this fire for himself. There's only one way to do that. He climbs 80ft up a metal staircase to an inspection hole. He lifts the metal cover of the hole and peers down into the reactor. Below him is a raging inferno. A thought flashes across Tom Toohey's mind. What a bloody mess we're in. I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to Cautionary Tales. Lorna Rainbow started school a year later than she could have. The school was over a mile from the farm her family rented, and they didn't have the time to walk her there and back. You had to work all hours to make ends meet as a tenant farmer in southern England in the early 1920s, when Lorna was five, her parents thought she was probably still a bit too young to walk the mile to school on her own. But at 6, off she went. The walk to school was down a rutted lane. Dusty in the summer, muddy in the winter. Traffic wasn't a problem. There might be an occasional horse and cart, but the lane passed only a couple of other houses. The main danger, at least in 6 year old Lorna's mind, was a big oak tree where rumor had it that a man had once been hanged. Could it be haunted? Every day Lorna ran past the tree, her heart thumping. But the rest of the walk was enchanting. Lorna remembers a lovely profusion of wild flowers by the roadside. Birds and birdsong, tiny emerald green frogs in the puddles. In wet and stormy weather, I would sing as I splashed through the puddles in my rubber boots. In winter, every winter, the magic of snow. The school had just two rooms, one for little kids, one for bigger kids up to the age of 14. Then you'd leave to work on a farm or as a housemaid or maybe a shop assistant. The local town had a Woolworths. It also had a secondary school and you could sit an exam to earn a scholarship. But nobody from Lorna's school had ever even tried. Further education wasn't something kids aspired to, especially girls. Lorna remembers a poem her grandmother used to be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever? Lorna's dad was more encouraging. Be good, sweet maid, he'd tell her with a wink. And if you must be clever. On the day of the exam, Lorna was terrified. A vast school hall, endless rows of desks and a paper that said Intelligence Test. She'd never seen anything like it. But the test turned out to be like a wonderful new game at her new school. The girls spoke of loftier ambitions. Maybe they could be a nurse or a teacher or a secretary. At least for a few years, until they got married. Lorna liked English and history, but physics and chemistry were barely on the curriculum. I had no idea, she recalls, that in 1932 two scientists in Cambridge had split the atom. This fact would be central to my later life. In Cambridge. In the 1930s, a young man called Bill Penny was doing original research for his doctorate in quantum physics. Though if you'd met him, you might not have guessed it. Penny was burly, a 100 metre runner, and on the soccer pitch, a robust, bustling centre forward of the old fashioned type. He was shy and prone to blushing. He talked in a drawl and had a lopsided grin permanently on his face. His woolly sweaters were a bit too baggy. He looked and spoke, said one journalist, as though he was a Bit simple. When the Second World War broke out, the government asked Penney to make calculations about blast waves from explosions as German bombs rained down on London, Penny became such an Expert that in 1944, he went to Los Alamos to join the Manhattan Project. At first, his American colleagues didn't know what to make of him. He gave a talk, explaining in gruesome detail the effects of blast waves on the human body, all with that amiable grin. They nicknamed him the Smiling Killer. But Penny soon won friends. He was completely without pretence. He had absolutely no side or standoffishness. Someone who hosted him recalls, it was like having a teddy bear in the house. But the teddy bear had a mind like a razor. When the Americans wanted to know how high above Hiroshima and Nagasaki to detonate their bombs, it was Penny they trusted with the calculation. Afterwards, Penney flew to Japan and roamed through the ruined cities, looking for clues that would let him calculate exactly how much power the blast had unleashed. He worked it out by mapping crumpled gasoline cans. Back in Britain, Penny looked forward to a quiet life in academia. But the government had other ideas. Britain, they told him, needed the atom bomb. As it happened, Penny agreed. He'd seen up close in Japan the horrors of the bomb. He bought the logic that Britain would be safer with its own nuclear deterrent. But now the war was over. The US had decided no longer to share its nuclear knowledge with its allies. The only person who can build a bomb for Britain, the government told Penney, is you. Penney agreed, reluctantly, to lead a team of scientists that rapidly grew from the hundreds to the thousands. One interviewer invited Penney to big himself up. How many people are working under you? Penny replied in his laconic drawl. About half. By 1952, Penney was ready for the first test of Britain's new atomic technology. In a remote part of Australia, the Prime Minister waited anxiously to hear if the test had failed or succeeded. It said he had two telegrams ready. One began, tough luck, Dr. Penny. The other, well done, Sir William. A journalist later asked Sir William Penny to describe how the test had gone. It went off, he replied, like a bomb. The British government hoped to use the successful test to persuade America to agree to a partnership to share nuclear knowledge. But while Britain had been catching up, America had moved ahead from the A bomb to the H bomb. H bombs worked very differently and were much more powerful. Britain would have to build an H bomb too. They'd need plutonium, lots of plutonium, and quickly they'd manufacture it at windscale. Cautionary Tales will be back after the break.

J.R. Martinez

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Tim Harford

What a bloody mess we're in. Tom Toohey closes the inspection hole and descends the 80ft of metal steps, thinking about his options. The nuclear reactor at Windscale was cooled by air, not by water. If something's too hot, blowing more air on it is generally a good way to cool it down. But if something's on fire, blowing air on it is going to make the fire worse. Could he turn off the fans to try to put the fire out? He could, but it was risky. Only part of the reactor was on fire. The fans were still cooling the rest. Turning off the fans could make the rest overheat, which might make things worse. It was a last resort. Could he dump water on the reactor to try to put the fire out? He could, but it was risky. The reactor core was made from graphite. Picture a kind of honeycomb, and inside each hole a series of metal canisters containing uranium fuel. What would happen if you dumped a load of water on a burning mass of uranium metal and graphite? Nobody was sure. As Tom Toohey said, mankind had never faced anything like this ever before. But it might release gas that could cause an explosion. Water was a second from last resort. Workers at Windscale had been trying to create a firebreak by using steel poles to push the uranium canisters out of the honeycomb holes around the part of the core where the fire was burning. Now, dripping with sweat in their heavy protective suits, they start trying to shove the burning canisters out of the fiery core itself. It's hard. Canisters are twisted by the heat. The poles come out glowing red and dripping molten steel. They need more steel poles. They raid the scaffolding on a nearby construction site. They were heroes that night, an officer later said of the workers. But were their heroics having an effect? At close to midnight, Tom Toohey climbs the 80ft of steps again to peer through the inspection hole. The fire has spread. At Lorna Rainbow's secondary school for girls. Nobody had ever gone on to university Lorna's teachers encouraged her to sit the scholarship exams. Once again, she aced them. Soon after she finished her English degree, the Second World War broke out. As men signed up to fight, women filled the jobs they vacated. Lorna received a telegram from the War Office inviting her to interview for the post of junior administrative assistant. At first she felt bewildered. There was so much to learn, she recalls, and I was woefully ignorant. I had no office experience and knew nothing about the army. She began by arranging rooms for meetings and being a general gopher. Then her boss asked her to write up the meeting minutes and then to draft papers and briefing notes. He'd go through them with her, sentence by sentence. What's your basis for saying this? Should you explain that point more fully? Think who's your readership? Tell your story in a way your readers will understand. She thanked him for his kindness in mentoring her, and he laughed. He wasn't being kind. He'd simply seen how quickly she could learn. Lorna was promoted to work on plans for the occupation of Berlin. When Germany surrendered, she was sent to Berlin. She spent her first night in a ground floor flat with broken windows, listening to Russian soldiers maraud through the streets, singing drunken songs and shooting in the air. What if they came in through her broken window? The next morning, she mentioned her concern to an officer. Here, he said, have a revolver. Lorna worked on setting up administration of the British zone of Berlin and was surprised to find that she was senior to some of the army clerks. Yes, sir, they'd say to her. Ms. Rainbow, sir. But the British were strapped for resources. They'd need support from America. Lorna was sent to Washington to help with the negotiation. At a lunch to celebrate the deal, the Secretary of State began his speech with a smile in Lorna's direction. Lady and gentleman. Lorna spent three years in Washington, profiled in the newspapers as a vital cog in the diplomatic wheel. Then she resigned. Why? It seemed perfectly natural. She later explained. The world was changing from a wartime to a post war situation. Women who'd filled the gaps during the war were generally being displaced. It never occurred to me to think that I had established any rights to a special position in this man's world. With hindsight, she says, she could have continued her career. But at the time I simply felt that I'd done my bit. Lorna moved back to England and got a low level office job and a husband. Wasn't that what women were supposed to do? Be good sweet maid and let who will be clever. At one o' Clock in the morning, the phone rings at the home of the Chief Constable of Cumberland. A few years earlier, he'd met bosses at Windscale to agree on procedures in case of a major emergency, which was, he was assured, only a remote possibility. Could he dust off that file and start to implement the procedures? The Chief Constable makes calls through the night. A fleet of buses descends on Cumberland, ready to evacuate villages downwind of the reactor. At Windscale, Tom Toohey searches desperately for an alternative to water as a way to quench the fire. A huge amount of some inert gas like argon might do it. But where is he going to get a huge amount of argon in rural England? In the middle of the night, he tracks down a tanker of carbon dioxide. It's worth a try. At 4 in the morning, he pumps in the carbon dioxide, then climbs the 80ft of steps again to peer through the inspection hole. The fire still burns. They'll have to risk the water. 2e lines up the hoses with the honeycomb holes and turns on the taps. Sir William Penny had got a knighthood in 1952 for building Britain's first A bomb. But the reward he really wanted was a quiet life in academia. Not a chance, said the government. You need to build us an H bomb. Penny dutifully got to work. Despite giving everyone the general impression that he would much rather be digging his garden. The task became urgent. America and Russia were discussing an international treaty to ban nuclear tests. Penny would have to test his H bomb before that ban came in. He knew he wasn't ready and he thought the test might fail. It did. But he'd brought a backup plan a massive A bomb that might make a big enough blast to fool a layperson into thinking it was an H bomb. Those who knew the secret called the massive A bomb the Penny dreadful. It went off. Impressively assembled journalists duly reported that Penney's H bomb test had been a great success. Penny said nothing. In 1957, the US President finally agreed to the British Prime Minister's request for a nuclear information sharing partnership. But Congress still had to approve the deal. The Prime Minister could only hope that nothing would happen in the meantime. That might call into question Britain's competence as a nuclear power. Then news reached the Prime Minister from Cumberland. The reactor at Windscale was on fire and nobody knew how bad it might be. Water gushes through the hoses onto the burning reactor core. Tom Toohey waits anxiously. An explosion might kill him, but there's no explosion. Once again, he climbs the 80ft of steps to peer through the inspection hole. The water isn't working. The fire's still raging. It's time for the last resort. TUI shuts off the fans. The fire dies out. The rest of the reactor doesn't overheat. At midday, the Chief Constable of Cumberland gets another phone call. Panic over. No need to evacuate any villagers. Tom Toohey drives back home to his sick wife and children and collapses into bed, exhausted. But why had the fire happened? There were bound to be awkward questions from the Americans. They needed answers and quickly. The government set up an inquiry and asked their go to nuclear experts to chair it. Sir William Penn. Lorna Rainbow took her husband's name. Now she was Lorna Arnold. But her husband turned out to be secretly struggling with his sexuality. He came out as gay and left her, not daring to tell her to her face. By the time she received his letter of farewell, he had left the country and she was left alone with two young children and a low level office job. One lunchtime in 1958, Lorna sat at the desk in her office in London with a cheese sandwich brought from home and a cup of instant coffee, trying to summon up the enthusiasm to embark on a fresh pile of tedious papers. It was sunny outside. She decided to go for a walk and cheer herself up with a proper coffee from one of the new Italian places that were opening in London. There she bumped into a man she hadn't seen for years. They'd been in Berlin together. How's your life turned out? The man asked. I'm 42 years old, said Lorna. I'm bringing up two sons on my own. My job doesn't pay much and it bores me senseless. The man was shocked. How had that happened? He'd seen in the war how brilliant Lorna was. Everyone had, except Lorna herself. Leave it with me, he said. Lorna got a letter inviting her to an interview with the UK Atomic Energy Authority. We're expanding our staff, the director explained, because we're studying the aftermath of an incident at Windscale. Lorna said, I know nothing about science. I can't possibly be of any use to you. She got the job. Cautionary Tales will be back after the break.

J.R. Martinez

Hey, this is J.R. martinez, host of Medal of Honor Stories of Courage. Navy Federal Credit Union is celebrating America's 250th anniversary with exclusive $250 offers for new members. After being approved for membership online, select a special cash rewards offer and earn a $50 bonus when you open a cash rewards credit card plus an additional $250 when you spend $2,500 within 90 days of opening, and you can get another $250 when you refinance your auto loan from another lender. That's up to $550 in potential bonus cash for new members. Plus Navy Federal is proud to support the National Flag Foundation's Light to Unite movement, inviting Americans to light their homes red, white and blue on July 4th as a shared moment of connection and reflection. Learn more and join today@navy federal.org America

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Tim Harford

any time when you own your own

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This is Bethenny Frankel from Just Be with Bethenny Frankel. Let me be blunt. Most dog food is junk. It just is. And I'm not feeding junk to Biggie and Smalls. That is why they eat just food for dogs. It's real 100% human grade food with ingredients I actually recognize. Not mystery pellets pretending to be healthy. And once I switched the difference was obvious. Better digestion, better skin, more energy. Dogs who actually feel good instead of just surviving dinner. Here's the thing. You care about quality. You make an intentional choice to be healthy. So why are you gambling with your dog's health? So let's think about our furry babies. Go to justfoodfordogs.com right now and get 50% off your first box. No code. Just try it. Because once you see the difference, you're not going back.

Tim Harford

Just six days had passed since the fire when Sir William Penny arrived at Winscale. He called in the workers, still drained from their sleepless nights. One recalls feeling intimidated at first. Penny was a big man, but he soon found that Penny was also extremely pleasant, courteous, thoughtful, very polite indeed. The story Penny heard began five years earlier. Soon after Windscale opened, workers had noticed a sudden increase in temperature in part of the reactor core. Nobody understood it. Nuclear technology was still very new. It turned out to be something called Wigner Energy. The reactor core, remember, was a graphite honeycomb in which were placed cartridges of uranium. As radioactive particles from the uranium buffeted that graphite honeycomb, they knocked atoms in the graphite out of place. This caused a buildup of Wigner energy, which could randomly release itself in a burst of heat. This was a problem. You don't want bits of your reactor randomly overheating. To prevent that, they'd have to release the Wigner energy in a controlled way. Every few months, the Windscale workers performed a Wigner release. They let the reactor core heat up. Not too much, just enough for the graphite atoms to safely rearrange themselves. They'd done this Wigner release eight times. It worked, kind of, but not in the same way. Every time as they let the core heat up, it would heat unevenly. They'd have to keep heating to get the cooler parts of the core to the required temperature or stop heating to prevent the hotter parts from getting too hot. There was no operating manual. The workers just had to figure it out as best they could. On the ninth Vigner release, it seemed they'd applied too much heat and the core caught fire. But what really caused the fire was that nobody at Windscale really understood what they were doing. Why did each vigner release happen differently? They didn't know, and they were working with only partial information. There weren't enough instruments in the corps to check temperatures everywhere. They were also understaffed in the hurry to build the bomb. The British nuclear program had expanded too quickly before enough workers could be properly trained. After 10 days in Windscale, Penney wrote up his findings. These explained the underlying problems. He didn't blame the workers for the fire, and he praised how they'd fought it. They were prompt and efficient, he said, and displayed considerable devotion to duty. Penney's report landed on The Prime Minister's desk. The Prime Minister was horrified. It made the British nuclear program look amateurish. If members of the US Congress saw this, they might refuse to approve Britain as a nuclear partner. Penny's report couldn't be published. The Prime Minister ordered that the report be locked away in a filing cabinet and issued his own summary instead. His summary blamed the workers. They'd made an error of judgment. He said, sorry, won't happen again. Congress approved the nuclear partnership. Britain's scientists now had access to U.S. expertise. A few months later, a U.S. delegation visited Windscale. They were shown round by high powered bosses who hadn't been at Winscale during the fire and told a story that bore no relation to what actually happened. Tom Toohey had to sit and listen and they didn't let him say a word. What did you think of that? An interviewer later asked Toohey. How polite do you want me to be? Toohey replied, I thought, what a shower of bastards. Under British law, secret government papers are usually published after 30 years have passed. 30 years after Windscale in 1987, the time approached for the Penny report to be taken out of its filing cabinet and made available to the public. That prospect worried the records officer of the UK Atomic Energy Authority. The problem was that the Penney Report on its own wouldn't tell the full story of what had happened at Windscale. After writing his report, Penny had recommended further investigations into the issues he'd identified. Documents from those investigations were due to be released later in dribs and drabs, 30 years after each was filed away. Why don't we release them all at once? Said the records officer. And I'll write a book to accompany them. It's an important story, she said. It deserves to be told in a way that readers will understand. Good idea, said her bosses. When her book was published, the records officer got letters from workers who'd been there at the time of the fire. For 30 years, they said, we've been blamed for an error of judgment. Thank you for making it clear that it wasn't our fault. The records officer's name was Lorna Arnold. Lorna was now in her early 70s. She should have retired, but she'd found a job she loved. Lorna was assisting a historian to produce an epic three volume history of Britain's post war nuclear work. When the historian retired, with the third volume not yet finished, Lorna took it upon herself to finish the job. I could not bear, said Lorna, to see the waste of years of arduous research. In archives to which no other historians had or might ever have access. When Lorna was at school, her science teacher hadn't even mentioned the splitting of the atom. Now she was writing nuclear history with the help of a new friend, Bill Penney, now retired and finally enjoying the quiet life. Lorna spent hours at Penny's home going over her research together and getting an education in how little government ministers sometimes understand about technology. Lorna, penny would say, where did you get this garbage? A ministerial memo, she explained. Penny drawled, fellow didn't know what he was talking about. When Lorna was 81, a new boss at the Atomic Energy Authority insisted that she had to retire. But others knew how brilliant she still was and found a budget for a typist to help her finish the book at home. It was published in 2001. Lorna was 86 years old. Remember the Windscale worker who called his wife, bring the baby inside. Shut the doors and windows? He was right to be cautious. The Windscale fire turned out to have been much more serious than anyone realized at the time. Experts now believe that perhaps a hundred locals may have died earlier than they otherwise would have from cancers caused by radiation that leaked from the burning reactor. Nobody had defined in advance what level of radiation leakage might be tolerable for the local population. They had to work it out on the fly as the fire raged. The calculations seemed reasonable with the knowledge they had at the time. But that knowledge was incomplete. Nuclear technology was still very new. Typically, on cautionary tales, we like to draw lessons from disasters. And if you want a lesson from Windscale, it's this. When someone's in a hurry to roll out a dangerous technology, don't be too quick to assume that they know what they're doing. And when they assure you that they do, don't be too quick to believe them. But I also want to take a step back, because to tell these stories of disasters, we rely on others. People like Bill Penney, who asked thoughtful questions of the Windscale workers straight after the fire and wrote a fair and insightful report. People like Lorna Arnold, who, 30 years later, wrote a book to put that report in context. In 2007, the 50th anniversary of the Winscale fire, the BBC made a documentary. Now in her 90s, Lorna agreed to take part. She was still as committed as ever to telling a story that gave credit where it was due. Tom to was the most impressive character. He was pretty young for his senior post. He was a lively, handsome man, so bold, features and a massive, gorgeous auburn hair flowing back from his forehead. Tom Toohy was brave and decisive in fighting the fire. He's a hero, no doubt, of the Windscale story. But I also want to celebrate Lorna Arnold, because sometimes the storyteller can be a hero too. For a full list of sources, see the show notes@the TimHarford.com. Cautionary Tales is written by me, Tim Harford with Andrew Wright, Alice Fiennes and Ryan Dilley. It's produced by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original music are the work of Pascal Wise. Ben Nadaff Haffrey edited the scripts. The show also wouldn't have been possible without the work of the Jacob Weisberg, Greta Cohn, Eric Sandler, Christina Sullivan, Keira Posey and Owen Miller. You can support Cautionary Tales by joining my cautionary club@patreon.com cautionaryclub for exclusive bonus episodes, newsletters, ad free listening and other exciting perks. Alternatively, you can join Pushkin plus on our Apple show page for continued benefits from our show and others across the Pushkin Network.

J.R. Martinez

Foreign. Hey, this is J.R. martinez, host of Medal of Honor Stories of Courage. Navy Federal Credit Union is celebrating America's 250th anniversary with exclusive $250 offers for new members. After being approved for membership online, select a special cash rewards offer and earn a $50 bonus when you open a cash rewards credit card, plus an additional $250 when you spend $2,500 within 90 days of opening. And you can get another $250 when you refinance your auto loan from another lender. Learn more and join today@navyfederal.org America250 offer

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Tim Harford

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.