GONE IN 90 SECONDS.....DOUNREAY CLEAN-UP ACCELERATED IN NEW VIDEO
3rd February 2008
It's already been cut from 100 years to 25 years. Now, the timescale for cleaning up and knocking down Dounreay has been accelerated to just 90 seconds in a new video showing how the site will look when decommissioning is complete.
The animated flyover shows how the site will disappear over the coming years as more of the fast reactor experiment is cleaned out and demolished.
Demolition of the site's fuel fabrication plant earlier this month took the total to 100 facilities to have been cleared so far.
An intensive phase of work over the next decade or so will see major facilities such as reactor buildings and reprocessing plants also disappear from the skyline.
By the time the clean-up is complete, all that is likely to remain in place are secure stores for up to 15,000 cubic metres of intermediate-level waste and fuels from the clean-up programme.
Up to 175,000 cubic metres of low-level waste from the clean-up is earmarked for disposal in a series of adjacent vaults currently the subject of a planning application.
A final decision has yet to be taken on whether to keep the contaminated 1950s sphere that housed the first of the site's three reactors.
The current programme agreed with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which owns Dounreay, is for the clean-up to be complete by 2032.
Site contractor UKAEA, supported by its business partners AMEC and CH2MHILL, is bringing forward proposals to accelerate this timescale further,
Site programme manager Alistair Macdonald of UKAEA said: "There are overwhelming safety, security and environmental reasons for decommissioning Dounreay as quickly as it is safe to do so.
"We've shown several times already that we can complete the clean-up on an earlier timescale and we're confident we can improve our planning estimates even further to bring in the completion date from its current position in 2032.
"I don't think we will ever reduce it to 90 seconds but the video does give the public a good impression of our focus on accelerating the clean-up and managing the wastes in a way that makes them safe and secure for future generations."
The video - produced by site services contractor Johnson Controls for UKAEA - can be viewed at http://www.ukaea.org.uk/sites/video_clips.html
Related Businesses
Related Articles
Find out what has been happening at UKAEA in our monthly newsletter. Read about our recent activities and upcoming events.
Find out what has been happening at UKAEA in our monthly newsletter. Read about our recent activities and upcoming events.
Members were given an overview of the scale of the problem and challenges faced in the decommissioning of the site. In the last week of March 2024, several members of CoRWM led by the Chair, Sir Nigel Thrift, made the long journey up to the North of Scotland to visit the Dounreay nuclear site, now managed by Nuclear Restoration Services.
Dounreay has awarded an important waste clean-up contract to Jacobs as the site plans for the future of its deepest historic radioactive waste store. Jacobs and its supporting partners have been awarded a 6-year contract to provide a design management team to produce a fully integrated design for the shaft and silo project.
Dounreay’s radioactive impact on the environment continues to fall, according to a report. The annual survey report “Radioactivity in Food and the Environment” (RIFE 2012) has recently been published and it can be read here - http://www.sepa.org.uk/radioactive_substances/publications/rife_reports.aspx The report uses data obtained from samples of air, fresh water, grass, soil, and locally sourced meat, fish, milk and vegetables during 2012.
Dounreay today completed the destruction of one of the most hazardous legacies of Britain's earliest atomic research. A purpose-built chemical plant processed the last of 57,000 litres of liquid metal lifted from the primary cooling circuit of the experimental fast breeder reactor.
Bosses at Dounreay agreed that they won't now be spending £500,000 on a repaint of the sphere. They money saved will go instead towards actual decommissioning work.
Getting rid of Britain's 20th century experiment with fast breeder nuclear reactors is illuminating the history of human settlement on Scotland's north coast stretching back 6000 years. Archaeologists hired as part of the closure of the nuclear site at Dounreay have pieced together the legacy left by previous generations who occupied the site as long ago as 4000BC.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has published the latest edition of the UK's radioactive waste inventory. This sets out the type and volumes of radioactive waste at sites such as Dounreay, as of April 1, 2010.
Cash from the closure of the fast reactor site at Dounreay is set to breed a new generation of engineers and scientists in the Scottish Highlands. The money from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority will fund half the cost of a £50,000 project to increase the number of school-leavers skilled in science, technology, engineering and maths.
