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Fast reactor control panel set to go down in history


By Will Clark

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Dounreay heritage officer James Gunn in the Dounreay Fast Reactor control room.
Dounreay heritage officer James Gunn in the Dounreay Fast Reactor control room.

IT WAS the first fast reactor in the world to provide electricity to a national grid when all eyes were upon it amid claims that the technology would open the way for boundless supplies of cheap electricity.

These hopes proved to be misplaced but now as Dounreay is set to disappear from the far north landscape within the next decade, one part of it is set to be preserved for ever to recognise its key role in the development of nuclear energy in the United Kingdom.

The historic panels which controlled the Dounreay Fast Reactor (DFR), which has become an iconic symbol of the north Caithness coastline, are set to be sent to be displayed at The Science Museum in London.

The experimental fast breeder reactor at Dounreay led British research and development of nuclear energy during the 1950s and 1960s. Housed inside a hulking steel sphere, it was built between 1955 and 1958 to test the concept, and began supplying power to the national grid in 1962.

The 14 megawatts of electricity it could produce was enough to power a town the size of Thurso and it operated up until 1977 when it was replaced by the Prototype Fast Reactor.

Along with the job of emptying Dounreay’s notorious underground waste shaft, decommissioning the DFR is rated as one of the biggest challenges in the nuclear industry in the UK.

As part of the stripping out the facility, the former control room will be demolished, but Dounreay heritage officer James Gunn said there is one part of DFR which will continue to live on after the site is gone.

He said: "The control room is viewed as a heritage object of national importance and it will be preserved at the Science Museum in London."

Representatives from the museum, the National Museum of Scotland and the Royal Commission on the Ancient & Historical Monuments of Scotland took the opportunity to visit the DFR control room last year.

They gave practical advice to the DFR project team for recording the details of the panels, labelling the parts, dismantling, packaging, storage and transportation to the city museum.

Reactors project director Jason Casper said the decommissioning of the former nuclear site is a complicated process, but as well as demolishing the site, an important part of the process is to preserve pieces of the site for future generations to appreciate the contribution Dounreay made to the nuclear industry.

"Decommissioning DFR is one of the most challenging projects faced by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and has presented (site licence company) DSRL with many unique challenges over many years," he said.

"The staff and contractors involved have worked extremely hard to ensure the safe and successful progress that has been made to date and DSRL is committed to preserving the industrial heritage of the site for future generations to appreciate and enjoy."

DSRL is working closely with the NDA and Caithness Horizons to preserve Dounreay’s historic artefacts and decades of industrial heritage.

The reactor was one of two built in the UK to run on liquid metal – an alloy of sodium and potassium known as NaK.

Following its closure in 1977, the reactor was defuelled, the liquid metal removed from the secondary circuit and some of the breeder material taken out. The job of taking it apart is particularly tough as a fuel assembly and 977 elements became warped and are stuck firmly within the reactor vessel.

Specialist bespoke robotic equipment and tools are being designed to remove this material. Once this is done, and the residues of liquid metal cleansed from the cooling circuits, work will begin to dismantle the sphere.


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