The iconic sphere is the centre of a controversy over whether or not it should be kept once the fast-reactor plant it contained is cleaned up and removed.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is not convinced by the case for its retention, though many local people want it to remain.

A possible middle way is being suggested by Thurso community councillor Al Christie. Mr Christie, a former chemist at the plant, suggests a replica to provide a lasting reminder of the fast-reactor experiment in Caithness.

"If it isn't possible to keep the dome, I think there could be a scale replica," he said. "It might be possible to make a model using steel mesh and wire and spray-on concrete."

He believes a replica would serve as a tourist attraction.

The dome of the Dounreay Fast Reactor appears on all the prospective "end state" scenarios prepared by the UK Atomic Energy Authority.

But the dome would appear to be doomed on the basis of the current thinking of the NDA, which oversees and bankrolls the clean-up of the UK's civil nuclear sites.

Forss-based NDA Scottish regional director John Farquhar recently said embedded contamination and signs of corrosion, together with the high costs of maintenance, mean the sphere should be demolished along with the rest of the old reactor plant.

Historic Scotland has in the meantime shelved plans to list the dome.

Reckoned to be one of the Far North's most photographed sites by tourists, the one-time "Dome of Discovery" featured along with the Forth road and rail bridges on a list of modern sites of significance drawn up by the International Council on Monuments and Sites. The reactor, the world's first fast breeder to produce electricity, ran from 1959 to 1977.

A £200 million programme is under way to decontaminate and strip out the remaining plant inside the sphere, which is believed to be the biggest steel ball ever built in Britain.

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