nuclear-news

‘Long journey ahead’ for nuclear plant clean-up

Piers Hopkirk, BBC News, Dungeness, 16 Dec 24

It took about 16 years to build Dungeness B nuclear power station, but to return the site to its original state will take nearly a century.

This is the scale of the task facing EDF as the company continues the process of removing the uranium from this decades-old facility that sits on a remote headland on the Kent coast.

The turbines stopped turning at Dungeness in 2018 and, with the decision taken to cease electricity production, the process of defueling the plant has begun.

In the giant reactor hall the scale of the task becomes apparent.

Buried under the floor are the uranium-filled fuel assemblies that powered the station’s two nuclear reactors.

There are more than 400 rod-filled assemblies in each reactor and it will take six years to safely remove them all.

It is done with the help of a giant 2,000 tonne crane that will carefully lift each one out before moving them into another part of the plant to cool.

Plant Manager, Paul Windle, said: “So far we have removed around 25% of the fuel from one reactor.

“We have got a long journey ahead.”

From the reactor hall the fuel ends up in an area called the ponds.

The fuel, still hot, is stored under water here for 90 days before it is deemed safe enough to be placed into steel flasks which will be moved on to lorries to begin the journey to a nuclear waste facility at Sellafield in Cumbria.

Dungeness B was the first advanced gas cooled nuclear reactor to start construction in the UK.

It was at the vanguard of 20th Century nuclear power generation.

However, in the face of technical challenges that were seen to be too expensive and complicated to address, the decision was taken by EDF to halt energy production………………………………………………………….. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz7qvderej9o

December 20, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | decommission reactor, UK