Search for Articles
Insight Newsletter
Edition 10 - November 2012(2Mb)
Previous editions of Insight
Edition 9 - June 2012 (3Mb)
Edition 8 - February 2012 (3Mb)
Edition 7 - September 2011 (3Mb)
Insight Newsletter - Special Edition - Financial Highlights 2010/11 (2Mb)
Edition 6 - June 2011 (1Mb)
Edition 5 - February 2011 (3Mb)
Edition 4 - November 2010 (2Mb)
Edition 3 - July 2010 (2Mb)
Edition 2 - March 2010 (2Mb)
Edition 1 - November 2009 (2Mb)
If you have any comments on Insight, please contact the editor:
01925 802343
Latest Articles
12 April 2013
International Waste Management Conference
04 April 2013
Nuclear history captured for posterity
04 April 2013
Winfrith hazard gone
04 April 2013
Breeder transport now under way
04 April 2013
Funding boost speeds up demolition
03 April 2013
Transport moves continue
03 April 2013
Climbing to new heights
03 April 2013
Bulk asbestos safely removed
03 April 2013
All clear for first vault
03 April 2013
The art of creating a nuclear sight
Last fuel leaves site
15 June 2012
The last consignment of spent nuclear fuel has left Dungeness A site for reprocessing at Sellafield, marking the end of a five-year programme.
Defuelling has removed 99% of the radioactive hazard from the Kent site, and attention now turns to a period of focused decommissioning aimed at reaching 'interim care and maintenance' by 2019. This will leave the site in a safeand secure state, with all higher hazards stabilised or removed, allowing resources to be targeted at other sites.
Ray Jepps, Dungeness A Site Director,said:
"The team has worked really hard to get this result. In the last year they have safely and progressively increased our defuelling performance to a point where we have been shipping four flasks per week.
"The workforce must now complete a programme of work to demonstrate thatall fuel has gone before formally notifying the nuclear regulators, which will allow the site to be re-categorised, and move to the next stage of decommissioning.
Brian Burnett, NDA Head of Programmes for Magnox and RSRL, said:
"The NDA is very pleased to see Magnox making such good progress on defuelling. This is an important milestone for Dungeness A and another success in our task of cleaning up the UK's civil nuclear legacy."
Near-term work priorities include a mix of conventional and radiological projects, from asbestos removal, de-planting and demolition, to the draining and sealing of its redundant spent fuel storage ponds and retrieval of legacy wastes.
| Fact file |
|---|
|
When Dungeness stopped generating at the end of 2006, its two reactors contained 55,000 fuel elements weighing a total 610 tonnes. |
|
The site despatched an average 33 spent fuel flasks per year from 2007-2009, but accelerated its programme from 2010. Since then it has dispatched a further 268 flasks, including 147 during 2011. |
|
Only 3,800 tonnes of spent fuel are left to be shipped from four Magnox sites, out of a total 50,000 tonnes originally manufactured, supplied and burnt in reactors at 10 sites across England, Scotland and Wales. |
| Shipments of spent Magnox fuel are organised in line with the Magnox Operating Plan (MOP). This is a plan of logistical arrangements to ensure the smooth supply and movement of flasks between Magnox sites and the reprocessing plant at Sellafield. |
Two down, two to go
Magnox hit a second defuelling milestone when the last nuclear fuel was removed from the second of four reactors at Chapelcross.
All 18,462 fuel elements have now been removed from Reactors 3 and 4 and safely dispatched to Sellafield for reprocessing.
Following formal permission in July 2008 by the regulator, the Office of Nuclear Regulation (ONR), to begin the process of defuelling, the first flask was sent off to Sellafield in April 2009.
Since then, Chapelcross has made safe and consistent progress in reducing the amount of radioactive material stored on site.
A total of 38,075 fuel elements are being systematically removed from all four reactors and safely despatched in approximately 260 flasks, with completion expected by June 2013.
