Work begins to bury Dounreay experiment
WORK is under way to bury the radioactive remains of Britain’s pioneering experiment with fast reactors at Dounreay.
Construction started on Friday on a series of underground concrete vaults that will receive up to 240,000 tonnes of low-level radioactive waste from the site’s demolition.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is investing £100 million to clear the redundant site of low-level waste and dispose of it beneath adjacent land.
The new facility is the first of its type to be built in Scotland since the 1950s and the first ever to be granted planning permission.
Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd engaged GRAHAM Construction to design and build the first two of up to six vaults.
The firm is expected to take two years to develop the first phase of the site under a contract valued at £13m. Up to 100 construction jobs are being created.
Subject to regulatory clearance, waste disposal is due to begin in 2014.
Nigel Lowe, the NDA’s director for Dounreay, said: “Dounreay was at the forefront of the country’s reactor programme when it was first built. As the site opens a new chapter in its history, it is again at the forefront as exemplified by this low-level waste construction project.
“This facility will ensure the material is safely and securely looked after well into the future, utilising modern standards and technologies.”
The last disposals are expected to occur sometime in the next decade. After capping, the vaults will be monitored for 300 years, by which time 95 per cent of the radioactivity will have decayed.