Latest news with #Aldermaston
Sky News
12 hours ago
- Politics
- Sky News
Inside Britain's largest nuclear weapons site - as scientists race to build a new warhead by the 2030s
Vaults of enriched uranium and plutonium to make nuclear bombs are dotted about a secure site in Berkshire along with Anglo-Saxon burial mounds and a couple of lakes. Surrounded by metal fences topped with barbed wire, much of the nuclear weapons facility at Aldermaston in Berkshire looks frozen in time from the 1950s rather than ready for war in the 21st century. But a renewed focus on the importance of the UK's nuclear deterrent means the government is giving much of its nuclear infrastructure a facelift as it races to build a new warhead by the 2030s when the old stock goes out of service. Sky News was among a group of news organisations given rare access to the largest of Britain's nuclear weapons locations run by AWE. The acronym stands for Atomic Weapons Establishment - but a member of staff organising the visit told me that the public body, which is owned by the Ministry of Defence, no longer attributes the letters that make up its name to those words. "We are just A, W, E," she said. She did not explain why. Perhaps it is to avoid making AWE's purpose so immediately obvious to anyone interested in applying for a job but not so keen on weapons of mass destruction. For the scientists and engineers, working here though, there seems to be a sense of genuine purpose as they develop and ensure the viability and credibility of the warheads at the heart of the UK's nuclear deterrent, this country's ultimate security guarantee. "It's nice to wake up every day and work on something that actually matters," said a 22-year-old apprentice called Chris. Sky News was asked not to publish his surname for security reasons. The workforce at AWE is expanding fast, with 1,500 new people joining over the past year. The organisation has some 9,500 employees in total, including about 7,000 at Aldermaston, where the warhead is developed and its component parts are manufactured. Designing and building a bomb is something the UK has not needed to do for decades - not since an international prohibition on testing nuclear weapons came into force in the 1990s. It means the new warhead, called Astrea, will not be detonated for real unless it is used - an outcome that would only ever happen in the most extreme of circumstances as explained in a new podcast series by Sky News and Tortoise called The Wargame. The last time, Britain test-fired a bomb was at a facility in Nevada in the US in 1991. With that no longer an option, the scientists at AWE must rely on old data and new technology as they build the next generation of warhead. This includes input from a supercomputer at the Aldermaston site that uses 17 megawatts of power and crunches four trillion calculations per second. Another major help is a giant laser facility. It is built in a hall, with two banks of long cylinders, lying horizontal and stacked one of top of the other running down the length of the room - these are part of the laser. The beams are then zapped in a special, separate chamber, onto tiny samples of material to see how they react under the kind of extreme pressures and temperatures that would be caused in a nuclear explosion. The heat is up to 10 million degrees - the same as the outer edge of the sun. "You take all those beams at a billionth of a second, bring them altogether and heat a small target to those temperatures and pressures," one scientist said, as he explained the process to John Healey, the defence secretary, who visited the site on Thursday. Looking impressed, Mr Healey replied: "For a non-scientist that is hard to follow let alone comprehend." The Orion laser facility is the only one of its kind in the world, though the US - which has a uniquely close relationship with the UK over their nuclear weapons - has similar capabilities. Maria Dawes, the director of science at AWE, said there is a sense of urgency at the organisation about the need to develop and then build the new bomb - which is a central part of the government's new defence review published in early June. "You've probably read the strategic defence review," she said. "There's very much the rhetoric of this is a new era of threat and therefore it's a new era for defence and AWE is absolutely at the heart of that and so a sense of urgency around: we need to step up and we need to make sure that we've got what our customer needs. Yes, there's very much that sense here." It means an organisation that has for years been purely focused on ensuring the current stockpile of warheads is safe and works must shift to becoming more dynamic as it pursues a project that will be used to defend the UK long into the future. In a sign of its importance, the government is spending £15bn over the next four years alone on the programme to build the new warheads. Part of the investment is going into revamping Aldermaston. Driving around the 700-acre site, which was once a Second World War airbase, many of the buildings were constructed into the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The construction of new science and research laboratories is taking place. But bringing builders onto one of the UK's most secure nuclear sites is not without risk. Everyone involved must be a British national and armed police patrols are everywhere. No one would say what will be different about the new bomb that is being developed here compared with the version that needs replacing. One official simply said the incumbent stock has a finite design life and will need to be swapped out.
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Inside Britain's largest nuclear weapons site - as scientists race to build a new warhead by the 2030s
Vaults of enriched uranium and plutonium to make nuclear bombs are dotted about a secure site in Berkshire along with Anglo-Saxon burial mounds and a couple of lakes. Surrounded by metal fences topped with barbed wire, much of the nuclear weapons facility at Aldermaston in Berkshire looks frozen in time from the 1950s rather than ready for war in the 21st century. But a renewed focus on the importance of the UK's nuclear deterrent means the government is giving much of its nuclear infrastructure a facelift as it races to build a new warhead by the 2030s when the old stock goes out of service. Sky News was among a group of news organisations given rare access to the largest of Britain's nuclear weapons locations run by AWE. The acronym stands for Atomic Weapons Establishment - but a member of staff organising the visit told me that the public body, which is owned by the Ministry of Defence, no longer attributes the letters that make up its name to those words. "We are just A, W, E," she said. She did not explain why. Perhaps it is to avoid making AWE's purpose so immediately obvious to anyone interested in applying for a job but not so keen on weapons of mass destruction. For the scientists and engineers, working here though, there seems to be a sense of genuine purpose as they develop and ensure the viability and credibility of the warheads at the heart of the UK's nuclear deterrent, this country's ultimate security guarantee. "It's nice to wake up every day and work on something that actually matters," said a 22-year-old apprentice called Chris. Sky News was asked not to publish his surname for security reasons. The workforce at AWE is expanding fast, with 1,500 new people joining over the past year. The organisation has some 9,500 employees in total, including about 7,000 at Aldermaston, where the warhead is developed and its component parts are manufactured. Designing and building a bomb is something the UK has not needed to do for decades - not since an international prohibition on testing nuclear weapons came into force in the 1990s. It means the new warhead, called Astrea, will not be detonated for real unless it is used - an outcome that would only ever happen in the most extreme of circumstances . The last time, Britain test-fired a bomb was at a facility in Nevada in the US in 1991. With that no longer an option, the scientists at AWE must rely on old data and new technology as they build the next generation of warhead. This includes input from a supercomputer at the Aldermaston site that uses 17 megawatts of power and crunches four trillion calculations per second. Another major help is a giant laser facility. It is built in a hall, with two banks of long cylinders, lying horizontal and stacked one of top of the other running down the length of the room - these are part of the laser. The beams are then zapped in a special, separate chamber, onto tiny samples of material to see how they react under the kind of extreme pressures and temperatures that would be caused in a nuclear explosion. The heat is up to 10 million degrees - the same as the outer edge of the sun. "You take all those beams at a billionth of a second, bring them altogether and heat a small target to those temperatures and pressures," one scientist said, as he explained the process to John Healey, the defence secretary, who visited the site on Thursday. Looking impressed, Mr Healey replied: "For a non-scientist that is hard to follow let alone comprehend." The Orion laser facility is the only one of its kind in the world, though the US - which has a uniquely close relationship with the UK over their nuclear weapons - has similar capabilities. Maria Dawes, the director of science at AWE, said there is a sense of urgency at the organisation about the need to develop and then build the new bomb - which is a central part of the government's new defence review published in early June. "You've probably read the strategic defence review," she said. "There's very much the rhetoric of this is a new era of threat and therefore it's a new era for defence and AWE is absolutely at the heart of that and so a sense of urgency around: we need to step up and we need to make sure that we've got what our customer needs. Yes, there's very much that sense here." It means an organisation that has for years been purely focused on ensuring the current stockpile of warheads is safe and works must shift to becoming more dynamic as it pursues a project that will be used to defend the UK long into the future. In a sign of its importance, the government is spending £15bn over the next four years alone on the programme to build the new warheads. Part of the investment is going into revamping Aldermaston. Driving around the 700-acre site, which was once a Second World War airbase, many of the buildings were constructed into the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The construction of new science and research laboratories is taking place. But bringing builders onto one of the UK's most secure nuclear sites is not without risk. Everyone involved must be a British national and armed police patrols are everywhere. No one would say what will be different about the new bomb that is being developed here compared with the version that needs replacing. One official simply said the incumbent stock has a finite design life and will need to be swapped out.
BBC News
13 hours ago
- Business
- BBC News
Defence secretary John Healey visits AWE Aldermaston nuclear site
The UK's nuclear weapons centre in Berkshire is providing security for "generations to come", the defence secretary has Healey visited the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) at Aldermaston to mark its 75th site is part of the Defence Nuclear Enterprise (DNE) - the partnership of organisations that operate, maintain and develop the UK's nuclear recent Strategic Defence Review included £15bn spending on the nuclear warhead programme. More than 1,500 jobs have been created at the Aldermaston site in the past year, the government has said. AWE has two sites in Berkshire - one in Aldermaston and one in Burghfield - developing and manufacturing the country's nuclear deterrent, which sees a nuclear-armed submarine at sea this month, the government announced it would be adding to the UK's defence systems, including 12 new attack submarines, with upgrades coming to the his visit - the first by a defence secretary since 2018 - Mr Healey met staff working to create the next generation of warheads, replacing those on the Trident nuclear-weapons media was also given rare access to the facility. Scientists showed the Orion laser system which recreates conditions in a warhead at the point of detonation. Building work is also underway on a new so-called hub on the site which will accommodate up to 3,000 engineers when it is Healey said: "It's the historic site which for 75 years has been at the heart of the UK's ability to build, develop and maintain our independent nuclear deterrent."What the workforce do is a source of great pride for us all but also provides us with that ultimate security - for this country and to our Nato said the £15bn spending would support AWE's workforce of 9,500 at Aldermaston, with 1,500 new skilled staff and double the number of apprentices and graduates joining in the past 12 months."It's investment now for the security of our generations to come."It's not just about the scientists on site - its the supply chain and the opportunities for young people in Reading and beyond," he said. You can follow BBC Berkshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
Times
18 hours ago
- Politics
- Times
Inside Britain's top secret nuclear bunker
Secure vaults containing decades-old enriched uranium and plutonium are dotted across Britain's sprawling atomic weapons establishment site in the Berkshire countryside. Some are underground, inside 1960s-era buildings, guarded by police on the roof tops armed with C8 Carbine assault rifles used by the Special Air Service (SAS). Cameras keep watch and security guards patrol the perimeter — lined by a fence and razor wire, like a prison — and 56 dogs are on hand to sniff out any sign of toxic chemicals. 'The guards and guns are not here to protect us, they are here to protect the material,' said one of the scientists giving a tour of the grounds. 'You can't get anywhere near them [the vaults] even if you tried,' added another. There are measures in place to ensure that if an airliner hit the site inadvertently, the risk of a radioactive fallout would be minimised. The threat of terrorists trying to steal the uranium is greater than that of a jet deliberately bombing the site. It is the first time in more than a decade that journalists have been allowed access here. On one side of the 700-acre site are crumbling chimneys towering above an 'out of service' factory where uranium was once enriched. Due to its international treaty obligations, Britain no longer enriches material. Once its stockpile runs out, it will be recycled. It is at this site in the quaint village of Aldermaston that scientists examined the teapot containing the lethal polonium-210 used to kill Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian defector, in London in November 2006. Some £15 billion is now being poured into modernising the facility, once a Second World War air force base and now home to 9,500 employees — 1,000 more than there were two years ago. The Ministry of Defence is drawing up designs for the next generation of sovereign nuclear warheads, known as Astraea, and the focus on Britain's nuclear programme is intensifying. The Astraea, also known as the A21/Mk7, will replace the Holbrook warheads on the Trident missiles deployed on Britain's four nuclear deterrent submarine boats. It has been two decades since the AWE (Atomic Weapons Establishment) worked on warheads, which is why the site needs a huge investment programme to prepare the facilities. Astraea is being developed in parallel with the US W93/Mk7 warhead but not together with the US because the nuclear material cannot be transported plan is for the warhead to be ready for use in the 2030s, although it is still in design phase. Amid warnings of a 'third nuclear age' in which Britain is threatened by multiple enemies including Russia, speed will be critical. 'This is a new era of threat and there's a sense of urgency. We need to step up,' said Marina Dawes, director of science at the site. The nuclear bombs are made up of fissile materials including uranium, plutonium and other components such as high explosives. For the first time, the bombs that are produced will never have been tested in real life. The UK, along with others, has agreed not to test its nuclear bombs in the way Robert Oppenheimer oversaw the testing of the world's first nuclear weapon, nicknamed Trinity, in the Jornada del Muerto desert within the Alamogordo Bombing Range in New Mexico, in July 1945. Instead, scientists and engineers in the UK today rely on the Orion laser, which enables them to simulate the hot and dense conditions at the moment of detonation but without the need for nuclear materials. 'We create the condition at the moment of detonation,' said another scientist, showcasing the equipment. This isn't a giant death ray, but a bespoke scientific tool,' added another. Twelve lasers beam down on to one tiny target — no more than 5mm long and painstakingly created by hand over many months. There is an entire building for a super-computer, which is able to make four trillion calculations in a second. It has stored data from previous experiments and is used to validate tests to ensure what the scientists are creating will work in a realistic scenario. Bunkers store massive quantities of high explosives across the base. At Aldermaston, the components are manufactured before they are shipped off to another site, at AWE Burghfield, less than ten miles away. There they are put together and later weaponised ready for use. Transporting the materials is a huge endeavour involving highly secure trucks, escorted by more than 50 vehicles, including a tow truck, police cars and motorbikes. Down the road is the Blacknest site, where scientists monitor for seismic signals that may suggest another country has tested a nuclear weapon. Those who work at Aldermaston are proud of the work they do. 'Being a nuclear weapons state is an awesome responsibility. It is the most serious of serious things,' said another senior employee at the site. At Aldermaston and other defence nuclear industry sites, salaries average £45,500 — 20 per cent higher than the UK average — yet they are still desperate to recruit. Women from diverse backgrounds and the neuro-diverse are among those being targeted. At present, only 20 per cent of the workforce is female, according to Mandy Savage, the engineering director. YouGov polling commissioned by the MoD found that in March this year, 65 per cent of those polled supported maintaining the UK's independent nuclear deterrent. This was the highest level of support since the MoD began polling in June 2018. Amid fears the US could bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, triggering a wider conflict in the Middle East, John Healey, the defence secretary, was given his first tour of the site on Thursday. He said the technology being developed was 'keeping us all safe every minute of the day'. He added: 'The skilled men and women working here play a fundamental role in deterring global conflict and that cannot be underestimated.'
BBC News
11-06-2025
- Health
- BBC News
What is AWE and why does it need emergency alerts?
People in the vicinity of two nuclear sites in Berkshire have been urged to sign up to emergency areas around the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) sites in Aldermaston and Burghfield are covered by Detailed Emergency Planning Zones (DPEZs) - a legal requirement around licenced nuclear part of this, the organisation has introduced an emergency text alert system, where people can be notified in the event of a nuclear emergency. What happens at AWE? AWE is a non-departmental public body, owned by the Ministry of Defence. It is responsible for developing, manufacturing and maintaining the UK's nuclear has two sites in Berkshire - one in Aldermaston and one in part of this, high explosives and radioactive substance are used on the sites under controlled conditions. Ionising radiation We are exposed to ionising radiation all the time - mostly from natural sources, but also from things like X-ray the danger is removed as soon as you are away from the source, and you do not become radioactive as a if radioactive material is in a form where it can be easily spread around - like a gas or a very fine powder - then it can get inside the example through breathing it in or consuming food or drink that has been contaminated by radioactive the radiation is absorbed, it can cause changes to the body at a molecular level. These changes can lead to negative health effects such as cancer. What are the risks at AWE? AWE said there were no nuclear reactors on site, so there was "no risk" of a Fukushima or Chernobyl-type if there was an uncontrolled fire or an explosion in a building where radioactive materials are behind used, that could lead to radiation particles being released into the environment, which could then lead to people being of this risk, AWE and West Berkshire Council (WBC) have rules about what people within the DEPZ should do in the event of a nuclear emergency - and that's where the emergency alerts come in. What will the emergency alert say? According the WBC, the emergency text would inform people there has been an incident at either Aldermaston or would tell them to go indoors, close windows and tune into local media if they are in the affected they are not in the DEPZ at the time, they would not need to follow the instructions in the it would still useful to get the warning, because people may not be able to return to the affected area until after the alert has passed. What are the areas covered by the alerts? The alerts cover the DEPZs surrounding the two in the event of a disaster, the radioactive particles could be carried in a plume and the extent of this would depend on the weather conditions at the a result, while the potential affected area is calculated using estimated wind strength, in the event of an emergency experts would use computer modelling to track and forecast the actual risk, WBC said. How likely is a nuclear emergency? Both WBC and AWE said an emergency alert was "unlikely".But, by law, the local authority has to have a plan about what to do just in case. You can follow BBC Berkshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
