On the afternoon of August 15th, 1947, the final stringers of uranium fuel were loaded into GLEEP (Graphite Low Energy Experimental Pile) and the 'pile' started to diverge to become the first nuclear reactor outside the USA - or so we thought. Now that we know a bit more about the history of the nuclear programme in the Former Soviet Union, it seems they were well into the atomic race. Nevertheless, if we were not second we were certainly third. The immediate successor to GLEEP was BEPO (British Experimental Pile One) which was closed down in 1968 after 20 years operation as the progenitor of all British graphite reactors.
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