nuclear-news

September 14, 2023: Dounreay decommissioning end date that proved to be unachievable

 By Alan Hendry – alan.hendry@hnmedia.co.uk, 14 September 2023

 The end of an era for Caithness… the last chapter in a pioneering
industrial story that began in the black-and-white world of the 1950s… a
final farewell to our great atomic age… Or at least, it would have been
if a prediction made 11 years ago had proved to be accurate.

It was in May 2012 that Roger Hardy, then managing director of Dounreay Site Restoration
Ltd (DSRL), announced a target for the demolition of the nuclear site that
had transformed the county’s socio-economic landscape over the course of
six decades. Dounreay’s operators were setting a specific end date of
September 14, 2023.

That was when all redundant facilities needed to be
flattened and the waste sorted, segregated and made safe for the long term,
according to Mr Hardy. It was a big ask, he acknowledged at the time, but
staff were responding to the challenge: “No-one seems hugely surprised by
what we think is achievable.”

It was destined not to be achievable after
all. The current deadline for the clean-up is 2033, a full decade beyond
that 2012 forecast – although questions have been raised as to whether
even this revised schedule is a realistic one. Earlier this year,
ex-councillor Roger Saxon, a former chairman of Dounreay Stakeholder Group,
expressed the view that 2033 would be unachievable. He was concerned that
momentum had been lost on the decommissioning programme.

 John O’Groat Journal 14th Sept 2023

https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/september-14-2023-dounreay-end-date-that-proved-to-be-unac-326495/

September 18, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | decommission reactor, UK