Mad on Radium: New Zealand in the Atomic Age

by Rebecca Priestley

In this engaging and accessible history, prize-winning author Rebecca Priestley reveals the alternative history of 'nuclear New Zealand' - a country where there was much enthusiasm for nuclear science and technology, from the first users of x-rays and radium in medicine; the young New Zealand physicists seconded to work on the Manhattan Project; support for the British bomb tests in the Pacific; plans for a heavy water plant at Wairakei; prospecting for uranium on the West Coast of the South Island; plans for a nuclear power station on the Kaipara Harbour; and thousands of scientists and medical professionals working with nuclear technology. Priestley then considers the transition to 'nuclear-free New Zealand' policy in the 1980s. The change was dramatic: in the late 1970s, less than a decade before becoming so proudly nuclear-free, New Zealand was considering nuclear power to meet growing electricity demand in the North Island and the government was supporting a uranium prospecting programme on the West Coast of the South Island. But following the nuclear-free policy, anything with nuclear associations came under suspicion: taxi drivers referred to a science institute using a particle accelerator as 'the bomb factory' and Jools Topp of the Topp Twins refused radiation therapy for cancer, telling the doctors 'I'm a lifelong member of Greenpeace, why would I let you irradiate me?' By uncovering the long and rich history of New Zealanders' engagement with the nuclear world and the roots of our nuclear-free identity, by leading us into popular culture, politics, medicine and science, Priestley reveals much about our culture's evolving attitudes to science and technology and the world beyond New Zealand's shores.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

256 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Rebecca Priestley is a non-fiction writer based in Wellington, New Zealand. Her books include creative non-fiction (Fifteen Million Years in Antarctica is an Antarctic memoir) and non-fiction works with a focus on the history of science.

Reviews

[Keen Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

“New Zealand never mined uranium, this was not because of a moral decision not to provide materials for the international nuclear power and weapons industries. Rather, it was because no economically viable deposits of uranium were ever found, despite 35 years of uranium prospecting initiated by the DSIR and supported by the NZ and British governments.”

Priestly gives a nice rounded account, which proves to be engaging, entertaining and quite often shocking too. From the origins of the atom with Rutherford and Marsden going right up to Rainbow Warrior and the current state of being a non-nuclear state. This is bolstered by lots of photos, posters, tables, charts and a whole host of other amusing and disturbing related ephemera which really gives an authentic insight.

Initially NZ, like much of the world had quite the cavalier attitude towards ideas of radium and radiation in what was the dawn of the atomic age with its talk of a much better future and all the advancements the atomic energy would allow people to enjoy. This led to some wildly optimistic hopes and all its bold promises (safe, cheap, clean and almost limitless electricity) and dark secrets (producing weapons grade plutonium and very tricky and expensive ways of getting rid of waste).

From the 1940s onwards the South Pacific soon became the playground for many of the western nations to play out their nuclear fantasies. The UK, US and France favoured the vast body of water, due to its huge distance from their own respective mainlands. Bizarrely the French waited until 1963 before relocating from the Algerian Sahara Desert to the Pacific – also the same year the Partial Test Ban Treaty was signed by the US, UK and the Soviet Union. The French seemingly delighted in their contrary attitude to nuclear testing disregarding what the rest of the world thought, continuing right up until 1996.

The discovery of uranium in NZ’s West Coast in 1955 by a pair of septuagenarians, Cassin and Jacobson, caused quite a stir and lead to a severe case of uranium fever – which included “uranium ice cream” and “atomic red lipstick” the idea of this new magical thing suddenly charged the everyday with a thrilling, new modernity. Add to this that for years you could buy Radium polishes high-end Radon infused water. Also free X-Ray screens were put on throughout the country for TB and pedascopes (X Rays for feet to show correct sizing for children’s feet – which many kids played with) were used throughout many shoe shops in NZ, and the last one was only retired as late as 1969. Though later on when awareness increased around the effects and impact of this new world, we see that results showed that caesium 137, strontium 90 peaked in the mid-60s in Kiwi milk and many movements and protests were beginning to be established and grow in numbers throughout Aotearoa and beyond.

But ultimately Priestley concludes,

“NZ’s rejection of nuclear power and uranium can now be seen as the consequence of economic decisions made in the 1970s. The fact that we do not have a nuclear reactor can be seen as a pragmatic decision made by a country with a limited budget for science that it chose to focus on agriculture and supporting sciences, and the lack of a heavy-water plant can be seen as the result of the British withdrawing from a planned joint venture.”

[Pete Sime · Rating 5 out of 5]

New Zealand's nuclear history is much more than Ernest Rutherford, the Rainbow Warrior and our eventual nuclear-free status.

In this book, Rebecca Priestly charts an atomic history, touching on NZ's involvement in the Manhattan Project, radon-infused tonics at Rotorua, uranium prospecting on the West Coast, a (subcritical) research reactor at the University of Canterbury, particle accelerators, weapons test monitoring, civil defence, the policy decisions around whether to construct a reactor to supply Auckland and much more.

Thoroughly recommended.

[Samuel Armitage · Rating 4 out of 5]

The thesis of this book is that New Zealand's policy around the use of nuclear technology was driven more by economic factors rather than moral ones. That if uranium prospecting had found a stable supply in the West Coast, if the Maui gas field had not been uncovered or had New Zealand not operated on such a constrained budget from the mid 1960s onwards, the country may have procured a reactor for power generation. There's also the implication that DSIR senior leadership was dismissive of the value of nuclear research as opposed to agricultural research outputs.

Priestley is a solid writer and researcher who did a great job turning the hodgepodge of nuclear related events in New Zealand into a cohesive narrative starting with radium water all the way through to the 1987 Nuclear Free Zone. I think it would have been interesting to understand how this intersected with the environmental movement and how key actors and groups formed their stratagems that ultimately led to the demise of a New Zealand nuclear industry. There are bits and pieces of it in there around the 1962 Johnson Atoll test, but it didn't quite connect through other than causing a "vibe shift".

[Skalk · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a wonderful read. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the historical and political aspects of the Atomic Age. Well done to Rebecca to turning in a PhD on this topic into a very readable book!