Fast reactor site dilemma - Dounreay or Golspie

In the immediate post-war period Britain was then, as now, trying to decide upon a long-term energy policy that was clean, efficient and relatively cheap. How the quest to achieve this Holy Grail featured Golspie in its plan is told here by Alistair Fraser.

"A SITE near Golspie has been chosen on which to build Britain’s first nuclear fast breeder reactor" could have been the headline in The Northern Times, this month, 60 years ago.

It also could have carried the sub-heading: "Christopher Hinton, the man leading the project, will address villagers in the Drill Hall on how it will impact upon the area, and the job and career opportunities, the project will offer."

Pure fantasy, I hear you say. Well, not really. As the various sites that were under consideration, in the early ’50s, were gradually whittled down, the Golspie ferry site remained a strong favourite.

Our story starts in the late ’30s. Some of Britain’s leading scientists and physicists were researching and carrying out experiments at the very limit (then) of man’s scientific knowledge of the mystery of energy; indeed, their aim was to extend that knowledge. Their everyday language would include words and phrases like: fissile and non-fissile materials, uranium, chain reaction, splitting the atom, neutrons, nuclear, etc.

In 1938, scientists in a Berlin laboratory, discovered uranium fission and the possibility of a chain reaction. Two refugee scientists in Birmingham University produced a paper in 1940 detailing how a uranium super bomb could be made, and how it could be harnessed as a source of power.

In 1941, the Maud Committee, a highly influential think-tank, described how the separation of fissile uranium 235 from non-fissile uranium 238 could be achieved by a system called gaseous diffusion. Importantly, it also concluded that a slow, controlled chain reaction could be used in the production of power. This would also produce a new element similar to fissile uranium 235, and would be called plutonium.

The breakthrough came when Prime Minister Winston Churchill was shown the Maud Report, and he ordered its proposals be further developed. This was carried out under great secrecy by a government body code-named the Directorate of Tube Alloy (DTA). All this knowledge was shared with the USA through the British-USA Scientific Exchange Agreement, giving new impetus to America’s own research programme. This programme funded the Manhattan Project which included a number of British scientists in its team. It was this team that developed the atomic bomb that was exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. This defining moment in world history has been viewed as a constant hindrance to civil nuclear power, because of the inevitable linkage.

In 1945, the government put its research into nuclear power on an official footing by establishing the Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE), with Dr John Cockcroft as its first chairman. One of the people he appointed to drive its programme was Christopher Hinton, a brilliant engineer, recruited from ICI.

Between 1945 and 1950, a number of plants were built. Two plants, one at Capenhurst, the other at Chapelcross, Dumfries, were designed to produce plutonium. Significantly, both were able to operate at a very high temperature thereby creating steam, in order to produce electricity. This latter breakthrough heralded the start of civil nuclear power in Britain. The driving force behind this work was Hinton.

As the ’40s merged into the ’50s it is worth considering the conditions prevailing in Britain. The whole country was still in the grip of rationing; electricity was still a pipe dream for large chunks of the population, particularly in rural areas, and industry was trying to get back into full production. This production would, in the main, be fired by coal with factory chimneys belching out a toxic mix of grime and gases into the atmosphere.

With the various plants proving their worth and providing much information, the Ministry of Supply decided the next obvious step was to design and build a fast reactor. The man chosen to lead this project was Hinton.

He gathered round him a group of like-minded engineers and scientists, and formally met for the first time in his Risley (nr Manchester) office on 21st October, 1951, under the heading of the Fast Reactor Development Committee (FRDC), with Hinton appointed as chairman.

After a few months of deliberations, the FRDC was sufficiently confident that its concept had merit and could be delivered; it was time for a political statement. During the parliamentary session of 1952, Duncan Sandys, the Minister of Supply, made a fairly low-key announcement to the House of Commons that the government was considering the fast reactor concept as part of its energy policy, and was looking for a site to further develop the project.

One man who listened to this statement was Sir David Robertson MP, who had been elected in 1950 as the Conservative member for Caithness and Sutherland. He was painfully aware that his northern constituency needed a major economic boost; was, what he had just heard, the answer to his constituency’s economic woes?

And, as is often the case, there was a neat political quirk. Sandys, who was married to Diana Churchill, the Prime Minister’s daughter, had lost his seat in the Labour landslide of 1945. He was anxious to return to the House of Commons, a view shared by his father-in-law. Sir David was the MP for the safe Conservative seat of Streatham (London). With the 1950 General Election looming, Sir David decided to give up this safe seat to contest the Caithness and Sutherland constituency. Sandys was chosen to contest the Streatham seat in 1950, and, on winning it, was appointed Minister of Supply.

Sir David approached Sandys to get further information about his announcement to the House, and to find out the identity of the person leading this project so he could appraise this person of possible sites in his constituency. He no doubt reminded Sandys, in subtle terms, of course, how events in Streatham had worked in favour of the Minister.

It would be shortly after this meeting there was a knock on Hinton’s door...!

While Hinton and his team were making steady progress with the design process, they in turn were becoming concerned at their officials’ lack of progress in firming up suitable sites from those identified in the south-west and west coasts of Scotland, the Banff coast and the north Highlands. The favoured site had to be a coastal location, preferably no more than 50 feet above sea level, in order to construct a sea-water intake and outfall. An abundance of available freshwater from the area’s hinterland was also a necessity.

While Hinton and his colleagues were confident their project was safe, they had to consider the possibility of an incident occurring. Therefore, the site chosen had to be outwith a radius of five miles from centres of population greater than 2500.

Hinton always favoured a Scottish location, mainly because it offered him the best possibility of achieving the physical and engineering requirements the project demanded, while not forgetting the safety caveat.

One member of the FRDC didn’t favour a Scottish site. Professor Skinner is on record as saying: "It will be very difficult to recruit staff to a Scottish site." How wrong his statement would prove to be.

In the spring of 1953, Hinton decided to visit Sutherland and Caithness to look at the various sites identified by government officials and by Sir David. Let us look at the two sites, Dounreay and Golspie, that really interested him.

One wonders what was his first impression of Dounreay; is it a farm or is it an aerodrome? In reality it was both. The aerodrome was constructed during the Second World War, although it was never used "in anger", and lay there, its runways crisscrossing Lower Dounreay farm.

In reality he would have been impressed. Here was a flat, coastal site, with a basic infrastructure. There was an extensive Nissen hut "village" and a number of ancillary buildings, all built to service the aerodrome. The local, low-density population consisted mostly of farmers and crofters. Thurso, the nearest centre with a large population, some 3000, lay nine miles to the east.

The following morning he visited the ferry area of Golspie. While it had none of the infrastructure Dounreay offered, subsequent records implied Hinton was impressed with what he saw but he did have one reservation, which he kept to himself, for the moment. The site was both coastal and flat, and a glance inland would have told him there would be no shortage of fresh water. Also detailed to meet him that morning was Walter Sutherland, roads surveyor with Sutherland County Council, who later became a county councillor. Improved access to the area, and how it could be achieved, was discussed, as was a number of other road issues.

The soil structure was very important because the combined weight of the reactor sphere and its concrete foundation would be in the region of 17,000 tonnes. Mr Sutherland was asked to carry out a series of test bores.

There was much to think about as he journeyed south; by now he was certain the choice lay between Dounreay and Golspie. He knew that very shortly he would need to take a decision on which site was the most suitable. Hinton also knew that while the project would bring much prosperity and opportunity to the chosen area, it would also bring much change.

Apart from the Golspie site being suitable, what other aspects of the area were attractive? The symmetry of the three coastal villages and the burgh of Dornoch would be very appealing as places around which to build the many hundreds of houses, necessary for the incoming permanent workforce. Each community had its own primary school, and there were also secondary schools; all would require to be extended. He would also have been made aware of what the area, and indeed the whole county, offered, and could offer, in terms of leisure pursuits.

So, all in all, Hinton would be very satisfied with his trip to the north, and he had all summer to resolve the one query he had about the Golspie location.

Even this hardened professional must have afforded himself a smile at how well things had gone, and no matter which site was eventually chosen, it would be in Sir David’s constituency.

Hinton had many qualities; he was totally focused and energised by the task in hand, he could be demanding and ruthless, but never cavalier, particularly when it came to matters of safety.

The minute of one meeting of the FRDC reveals this side of the man. When discussing some aspect of the reactor’s design, Hinton said: "The only safe design is one on which one failure becomes less critical. I will not take a decision which could imperil the livelihoods of a large section of the population."

It was an honourable philosophy, and one that would be at the back of his mind when he sat down to consider the merits of the two sites.

At the September 1953 meeting of the FRDC, Hinton advised that while the Golspie site was otherwise suitable, he would not be choosing it, because he had to consider the village of Golspie which he felt was just too close to the ferry site. Instead, he was recommending a disused airfield in Caithness, some 30 miles from Wick. Not naming the site at the time seems pedantic, but there were political niceties to observe, and the engineer would be happy to leave that to the politicians.

Sixty years on, one can only speculate how the east coast of Sutherland would look today if Hinton, later Lord Hinton of Bankside, had put the interest of his project and his great vision of a new, clean energy, ahead of the interests of Golspie.