World's Longest Serving Nuclear Plant Closes

World's Longest Serving Nuclear Plant Closes

Jun 30 - Western Mail

The world's oldest operational nuclear power station has ceased production after nearly 45 years, it was announced yesterday.

The British Nuclear Group announced that the Chapelcross station, near Annan, in Dumfries, officially turned off yesterday morning.

Chapelcross, which began providing electricity for the south of Scotland in 1959, was not due to start closing until 2008.

Nearly 800 staff in total were employed at both Calder Hall and Chapelcross in June 2002 when BNFL announced it was bringing forward their closure dates.

It followed an economic review of the operation of its whole Magnox reactor fleet.

The review concluded that Calder Hall and Chapelcross, with their relatively low output but high overheads, had become loss-making.

Making the announcement Mark Morant, managing director of British Nuclear Group's Reactor Sites business said, 'As the world's currently longest serving nuclear power station, Chapelcross has earned a rightful place in the record books as a faithful provider of electricity to south west Scotland and the north of England.

'We are announcing the decision promptly to remove uncertainty within our workforce.

'Whilst there is a job to do at Chapelcross for many years to come, we expect staff numbers to change as we move through defuelling to decommissioning.

'We will continue to consult fully with our workforce and their unions about staffing issues so we can get on with the re-training and preparatory work needed to start the next phases of the station's life, making the fullest and best use of the staff currently on site.'

Yesterday's closure was welcomed by environment pressure group Greenpeace.

'What we hope now is that BNG will apply the same financial criteria to the rest of its operations and close the reprocessing operations at Sellafield which are also uneconomic,' said Jean McSorley, Greenpeace nuclear campaigner.

Along with its sister stations Calder Hall, based at Sellafield in Cumbria and Galloway in south west Scotland, the power stations were the prototypes of the further nine Magnox power stations that were later built across Britain when they opened in the 1950s.

The Magnox stations use a natural uranium fuel which is contained in magnesium alloy cans.

The reactors are cooled by gas which then passes through heat exchangers to produce steam for the generating turbines.

When Chaplecross was fully operational its four Magnox reactors produced 194 megawatts of electricity.

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