S3 E9: An Atomic Future

Wild Thing

Foxtopus Ink

Science

4.8 • 3.8K Ratings

🗓️ 12 July 2022

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What were the long-term effects of the SL-1 explosion? Nuclear power is a shrinking part of America’s energy picture; accidents and fear have tarnished it, and the old reactor fleet is reaching its end. Yet nuclear energy could provide a bulwark against the looming threat of climate change. Is it something we can make work for us, in spite of ourselves? Are the costs worth it in the long run? Sixty years on, what do we know—and are we better prepared?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The repercussions of the SL-1 explosion lasted well past 9.01 pm on January 3rd, 1961.
0:10.1	And although most people no longer remember the accident, it touched hundreds of lives
0:14.3	and rippled down through generations.
0:17.2	Dick Lake died before he could see the birth of his son.
0:20.6	Jack Burns and Richard McKinley both had young children who would never know their fathers.
0:25.8	The men's wives not only had to put their lives back together, but also deal with nasty
0:30.4	rumors of love triangles and murder suicides.
0:34.0	The rescuers lived with the horror of what they'd seen, and some of them no doubt worried
0:39.0	about what effect all that radiation exposure would have.
0:43.1	SL-1 left a permanent mark on their lives, and on the nuclear industry as a whole.
0:48.7	For the army, the accident was a handwriting on the wall.
0:51.5	It was basically the beginning of the end, like they didn't say, okay, SL-1 blew up, so
0:56.9	we're shutting down the program, but it went into this general perception that it was
1:01.4	not cost effective or practical.
1:04.3	SL-1 became a case study in what not to do.
1:08.3	In the aftermath of the accident, investigators and officials wrote report after report
1:13.4	about what went wrong, trying to glean valuable information from the tragedy.
1:18.1	There are a lot of lessons learned from that accident that are incorporated into reactor
1:22.6	designs, and in fact, all of our reactor designs and operation given how early in our nuclear
1:28.6	power history that accident was, so making sure the inadvertent removal of one carod
1:35.1	can't lead to that type of accident.
1:37.8	This didn't have to happen.
	...

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