- By Theo Leggett
- Business correspondent, BBC News
Image supply, Getty Images
Hinkley Point B ceased operation in August 2022 after 46 years
A dense forest of cranes, seen for miles round, marks the spot the place the UK’s first new nuclear plant in a era is being constructed, at Hinkley Point in Somerset.
Once constructing is full, it is anticipated to generate sufficient electrical energy to provide some six million houses, for the subsequent 60 years.
But simply a few hundred yards away stand two very seen reminders that the legacy of nuclear power stations stays lengthy after they cease producing power.
The first of those, a huge, angular construction looming over the Bristol Channel, is Hinkley Point B. When it opened in 1976, its two superior gas-cooled reactors (AGRs) have been cutting-edge.
But over almost half a century of era, cracks developed of their graphite cores, creating potential security issues, they usually have been shut down for good final 12 months.
Yet contained in the cavernous important corridor, little appears to have modified. Freshly painted equipment gleams underneath vivid lights, as groups of staff in blue boiler fits scurry round above the reactors themselves.
The important exercise in the mean time is defueling: eradicating a whole lot of gasoline assemblies from deep inside the reactor cores, stripping them down, and sending the wastes away for storage at Sellafield.
As we watch, a massive metal tower is being positioned over the reactor. This is the charging machine. It appears to be like quite like an old school helter-skelter, however actually it is a heavily-shielded crane.
The gasoline assemblies, having been within the reactor for years, are extremely radioactive and must be dealt with with excessive care.
Dealing with probably ‘deadly’ nuclear waste is an on a regular basis activity for EDF’s Shaheed Mungur
“The machine is lifting the fuel assembly, which is highly irradiated and effectively is lethal when it comes to exposure,” explains Shaheed Mungur, efficiency enchancment supervisor at website proprietor EDF.
“But that’s the reason why you have all of the shielding around it, and why we have to use this machine to handle the fuel in a safe way.”
Once out of the reactor, the gasoline assemblies are positioned in a steel-lined cell for dismantling, the place the used gasoline itself is faraway from its casings.
The work is carried out remotely by operators stationed in a cramped management room.
They have to look via a 2m thick window, full of a brownish radiation absorbing fluid, to hold out their duties.
The gasoline parts are then left in deep, clear ponds to chill, earlier than being positioned in rugged, 45-tonne containers for his or her journey to Sellafield, the place they are going to be put into interim storage.
When working, the 2 reactors at Hinkley Point B every contained 308 gasoline assemblies. Removing all of them is anticipated to take as much as 4 years, and can price round £1bn.
“End of generation is absolutely not the end of the station life,” explains Director Mike Davies.
“We’ve been trusted for years to operate this plant safely. And during that time that of course included handling the nuclear fuel, and that’s what we’re doing now.”
“We’re taking the nuclear fuel out, and just not replacing it with new fuel.”
A employee remotely operates a closely shielded crane (inexperienced equipment) above the reactor
Once defueling is full, EDF will hand over the location to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).
To discover out what happens then, it is price going subsequent door – to a different power station, Hinkley Point A.
This was one of many UK’s first-generation nuclear websites. Its two reactors have been introduced on-line in 1965 – and shut down for good in 2000.
Nearly a quarter of a century later, its two box-like reactor buildings nonetheless stand tall towards the skyline. But different buildings, together with the large turbine corridor, have been eliminated – leaving simply a deep, weed-strewn gap within the floor.
Old gasoline storage ponds have been drained, cleaned and painted to cut back radiation dangers, though we’re warned to not linger round them. But elsewhere a water-filled vault stays half-full of radioactive scrap, which is being painstakingly eliminated.
“Don’t linger here” – a drained storage pond at Hinkley Point C
A brand new thick-walled concrete vault has been constructed on the location, to retailer intermediate-level radioactive wastes.
One of the largest present challenges, nonetheless, entails a utterly completely different sort of business hazard.
In one of many outdated boiler homes, groups of labourers sporting respirators are painstakingly cleansing miles of intricate pipework, by hand – as a way to take away traces of asbestos.
When the plant was constructed, massive portions of the fabric have been used as insulation – and hundreds of tonnes have already been eliminated.
Under present plans the majority of the decommissioning work shall be full by 2039. But the reactor buildings themselves shall be left standing, sealed up towards the climate, for an additional 20-40 years.
“The site will be safe and secure”, explains website director Kirandeep Basra-Steele. “The waste and the hazards will be buttoned down and safely stored.”
This is often called the “care and maintenance” section. Because radioactivity decays over time, the NDA believes will probably be safer to attend earlier than taking the reactor buildings aside.
With the ultimate stage of decommissioning anticipated to take about a decade, It means the location won’t be absolutely cleared till the 2070s on the earliest – 70 years after power era ended.
Meanwhile probably the most harmful waste merchandise created by each Hinkley A and B over their lifetimes will want cautious dealing with, probably for generations to come back.
Although nuclear vegetation have been working commercially within the UK since 1956, there is nonetheless no everlasting repository for top or intermediate stage wastes – a few of which is able to stay hazardous for hundreds of years.
Critics of the nuclear business say the decommissioning challenges of outdated vegetation, and the shortage of a everlasting answer for waste, imply it is flawed to construct new ones.
“The big lesson that we should take from the difficulty of handling nuclear waste at the moment is that we shouldn’t be creating any more of it,” says Doug Parr, Chief Scientist at Greenpeace UK.
Nevertheless, building of the brand new power station at Hinkley Point – Hinkley Point C – is pushing forward. Generation is on account of start in 4 12 months’s time.
But at some point, it too must shut, and a funded decommissioning plan – now a authorized requirement – has already been drawn up.
If all goes to plan, the method will take about 20 years, that means the stays of the plant will not be absolutely eliminated till properly into the 22nd century.
