{"id":19947,"date":"2018-08-24T17:01:21","date_gmt":"2018-08-24T16:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ihbconline.co.uk\/newsachive\/?p=19947"},"modified":"2018-08-24T17:01:21","modified_gmt":"2018-08-24T16:01:21","slug":"dismantling-starts-on-sellafield-chimney-the-scene-of-britains-worst-nuclear-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=19947","title":{"rendered":"Dismantling starts on Sellafield chimney \u2013 \u2018the scene of Britain\u2019s worst nuclear accident\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"building\"<\/a>Preparations for demolition of Windscale Pile One, the 110m high chimney structure at Sellafield which was the scene of Britain\u2019s worst nuclear accident, have begun.\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Contains public sector information licensed
\nunder the Open Government Licence v3.0.<\/em><\/h6>\n

<\/p>\n

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority writes:<\/p>\n

The 110m structure \u2013 the scene of Britain\u2019s worst nuclear accident \u2013 will begin to disappear later this year.<\/p>\n

A giant crane has been constructed to bring it down.\u00a0 The 152m crane is the tallest structure ever built at Sellafield, just six metres shorter than the Blackpool Tower.\u00a0 It will begin work this autumn, removing and lowering chunks of the chimney cut out using diamond wire saws.<\/p>\n

Duncan Thompson from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said:\u00a0 The complex task of decommissioning and demolishing the Windscale Pile One stack has reached an important stage.\u00a0 It is another example of the ingenuity that goes into solving the UK\u2019s decommissioning problems.\u00a0 Once demolition begins it will be a very visible demonstration of the work being done to make Sellafield a safer place.<\/p>\n

The Windscale Pile One chimney, with its distinctive top-heavy appearance, has dominated the Sellafield skyline for nearly 70 years.\u00a0 Famously, its filtration system was a last-minute addition, placed unusually at its summit.\u00a0 Despite being mockingly referred to as \u2018Cockroft\u2019s Folly\u2019, after its designer Sir John Cockroft, it turned out to be a masterstroke.\u00a0 In 1957, fire broke out in the Windscale Pile One reactor. The sky-high filters captured an estimated 95 per cent of the radioactive dust created.<\/p>\n

Now, the chimney is a decommissioning project.\u00a0 Teams from Sellafield Ltd and its supply chain are working together to safely pull it down.\u00a0 The first piece to go will be the square-shaped \u2018diffuser\u2019 at the top.\u00a0 Because buildings containing nuclear material surround the stack, traditional demolition techniques like explosives cannot be used.<\/p>\n

George Frost from Sellafield Ltd, said:\u00a0 We\u2019re making visible progress on this demolition, and it won\u2019t be long now until we start to see the diffuser removed.\u00a0 The chimney is one of the iconic legacies of Sellafield\u2019s past, so the skyline change as the chimney is removed will be significant.\u00a0 This has been a challenging piece of work, so everyone is pleased to see work progressing. This is thanks not only to the Sellafield and supply chain teams involved now, but over more than a generation.<\/p>\n

Read more and view the videos…<\/a><\/p>\n

For background see the IHBC NewsBlog<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Preparations for demolition of Windscale Pile One, the 110m high chimney structure at Sellafield which was the scene of Britain\u2019s worst nuclear accident, have begun.\u00a0 Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sector-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19947"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19948,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19947\/revisions\/19948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}