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The end of an era for Caithness… the last chapter in a pioneering industrial story that began in the black-and-white world of the 1950s… a final farewell to our great atomic age… Or at least, it would have been if a prediction made 11 years ago had proved to be accurate.
It was in May 2012 that Roger Hardy, then managing director of Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd (DSRL), announced a target for the demolition of the nuclear site that had transformed the county’s socio-economic landscape over the course of six decades. Dounreay’s operators were setting a specific end date of September 14, 2023.
That was when all redundant facilities needed to be flattened and the waste sorted, segregated and made safe for the long term, according to Mr Hardy. It was a big ask, he acknowledged at the time, but staff were responding to the challenge: “No-one seems hugely surprised by what we think is achievable.”
It was destined not to be achievable after all. The current deadline for the clean-up is 2033, a full decade beyond that 2012 forecast – although questions have been raised as to whether even this revised schedule is a realistic one.
Earlier this year, ex-councillor Roger Saxon, a former chairman of Dounreay Stakeholder Group, expressed the view that 2033 would be unachievable. He was concerned that momentum had been lost on the decommissioning programme.
It was reported at the time that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), which owns Dounreay, was reviewing the processes and timescales behind the demolition of the experimental fast reactor complex.
The first site-wide decommissioning plan published in 2000 envisaged a 60-year programme of work. The latest NDA business plan projects the Prototype Fast Reactor being dismantled in 2027, with Dounreay’s interim end state achieved in 2032/33.
Mr Saxon, a retired nuclear consultant, said in March: “I think it’s a bit like the Scottish Government’s schedule for dualling the A9 between Inverness and Perth. They kept with the 2025 date when it was obvious for a long time that could not be met.
He added: “I don’t think it is worth getting hung up on having an exact end date. We just want to see progress and an assurance that the buildings are not going to be stuck in mothballs.”
A spokesperson for DSRL said at the time: “The new long-range decommissioning plan is under review and is going through governance and assurance verification and will be communicated once approved.”
Key dates in Dounreay’s history (source: www.gov.uk):
1954 UK government selects wartime airfield at Dounreay as site for fast reactor research and development
1955 UK Atomic Energy Authority begins construction
1955 Craft apprentice training scheme starts
1955 The UK Atomic Energy Authority starts building housing estate in Thurso
1956 Ormlie Lodge staff hostel opens
1957 Nuclear reaction takes place for first time in criticality test cell
1957 Royal Navy announces submarine reactor test site named Vulcan
1957 Visits by the Queen Mother and the Duke of Edinburgh
1958 Materials Test Reactor goes critical
1958 Fuel reprocessing begins
1959 Experimental Dounreay Fast Reactor goes critical
1962 First electricity exported to National Grid
1966 Construction begins of Prototype Fast Reactor
1969 Materials Test Reactor shuts down
1974 Prototype Fast Reactor goes critical
1977 Experimental fast reactor shuts down
1977 Explosion in underground waste shaft
1983 Radioactive particles discovered on beaches
1986 BNFL and UKAEA announce plan to build European Demonstration Reprocessing Plant
1988 UK government announces withdrawal from fast reactor technology
1994 Prototype Fast Reactor shuts down
1996 Fuel reprocessing stops
1998 Safety audit by regulators identifies 143 recommendations for improvement
2000 UKAEA publishes site closure plan
2004 Fuel fabrication stops
2007/8 Nuclear Decommissioning Authority inherits site and Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd becomes its operator
2012 Management contracted out to Babcock consortium
2015 Removal of plutonium and uranium begins
2021 NDA takes management in-house
2023 Dounreay becomes a division of Magnox Ltd
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