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Skiddaw

Popular Science - The Windscale Nuclear Accident

Event type: Meeting
Date: 9th November 2026
Time: 11:30 am
Group: Popular Science
Venue: Portinscale Village Hall.
Organiser:

The next Popular Science meeting will be Dr Laurence Poulter, a nuclear physicist and engineer, talking about the 1957 nuclear accident at Windscale. The talk will explain how pressure to produce plutonium and the build-up of Wigner energy contributed to the fire in Pile 1. It will describe the bravery of workers who eventually extinguished it by forcing water into the reactor. The fire released radioactive material, including iodine-131, across Cumbria, leading the government to order milk from affected areas to be disposed of. Dr Poulter will consider possible long-term health implications, including thyroid-cancer risk, and explain how the initial suppression of the official investigation limited public scrutiny of the accident.