Sellafield

Sellafield is a nuclear fuel reprocessing an nuclear decommissioning site, close tae the village o Seascale on the coast o the Erse Sea in Cumbria, Ingland. The site is served bi Sellafield railway station. Sellafield incorporates the original nuclear reactor site at Windscale, which is currently undergoing decommissioning an dismantling, an Calder Hall, a neighbour o Windscale, which is also undergoing decommissioning an dismantling of its four nuclear pouer generating reactors. It is the site o the world's first commercial nuclear pouer station tae generate electricity on an industrial scale. Calder Hall Calder Hall, first connected tae the grid on 27 August 1956 an officially opened bi Queen Elizabeth II on 17 October 1956, was the warld's first nuclear pouer station tae generate electricity on an industrial scale from its four 60 MWe reactors A 5 MWe experimental reactor at Obninsk in the Soviet Union had been connected to the public supply in 1954, an was the warld's first nuclear pouer plant. The Calder Hall design was codenamed PIPPA (Pressurised Pile Producing Power and Plutonium) bi the UKAEA tae denote the plant's dual commercial an military role. Construction started in 1953. Calder Hall had four Magnox reactors capable o generating 60 MWe (net) of electricity each, reduced tae 50 MWe in 1973. The reactors were supplied bi UKAEA, the turbines bi C. A. Parsons and Company, and the civil engineering contractor was Taylor Woodrow Construction. When the station closed on 31 March 2003, the first reactor had been in use for nearly 47 years. In its early life Calder Hall primarily produced wappens-grade plutonium, with two fuel loads per year. Electricity production was a secondary purpose. From 1964 it was mainly used on commercial fuel cycles. In April 1995 the UK Government announced that all production o plutonium for wappens purposes had ceased. Moorside Moorside Nuclear Pouer Station is a new nuclear pouer station proposed for a site near Sellafield. References