ArchiveSeptember 2025

By 1957, there were four brand new reactor manufacturing consortia in the United Kingdom (with one more to come by the next year). They were all using the unique British gas cooled reactor design, albeit with competitive variations between firms. Their home market was guaranteed by the near monopoly of the state electricity utility. But overseas. they competed. And their only competitor then was. . .

One of the most prominent “characters” in my book is Walter Zinn, reactor designer extraordinaire. He played a role in inventing most of the designs that would go forward. But he himself vacillated on the “best” design. He often spoke up in favor of American light water reactors, probably because they were, by 1957, leading the world and he was nothing if not a patriot. . .

Some of the early power reactor pioneers have some form of biography to memorialize them, others do not. “Ben” (W. B.) Lewis, the Englishman who took over as the second head of Canada’s Chalk River in 1946 and then loomed large over Canadian reactors for decades, fascinates because of a fulsome bio. Apparently the daughter of another British-Canadian physicist, Ruth Fawcett was. . .

Fortune smiled upon me the day I discovered I could peruse the diaries of Christopher Hinton, one of the two core drivers of British nuclear energy in the 40s through the 50s. I think I spent a fortnight at the evocatively named address of One Birdcage Walk overlooking the very London vista of St. James Park. The Institution of Mechanical Engineering feels like an ancient order of professionals. . .

It amazes me how much progress India made in the first dozen postwar years toward nuclear capability, from a base that was essentially zero. The top atomic scientist, Homi Bhabha, was a key reason, and part of his success was his longstanding connections with scientists in the advanced nuclear nations. I always knew he was friendly with John Cockcroft, head of Britain’s Harwell, but I. . .

Over the late 1940s and well into the 1950s, the United Kingdom’s nuclear power program depended so much on two individuals, scientist John Cockcroft and engineer Christopher Hinton. Their interactions, antagonistic at times, shaped policy and actions. They were contrasting characters and I’ve written and blogged about both at length, but I remain fascinated by peripheral material. . .