In the years following the Chernobyl disaster, and even up to the present day, the debate on nuclear power raged around the globe. In fact, with the more recent Fukushima reactor scares, it can be said that the topic has never been “hotter”, so to speak. However, with Britain’s oldest nuclear power plant closing its doors for good yesterday, questions of whether the benefits of the radioactive materials used are really outweighing the risks.
Oldbury Nuclear Power Station, operated by energy company Magnox, first generated electricity using nuclear reactors in 1967, making it both Britain and the world’s oldest nuclear power plant. Reactor 1 was officially powered down at 11am yesterday, following the cessation of operation by Reactor 2 on the 30th June last year. The commercial property, near Thornbury in South Gloucester, will need a period of two years to cool down before clearing work can begin, during which time the staff numbers will drop from 460 to 360.
Yet the cooling down period is just the beginning – the 175 acre site will now take 90 years to clear, at a cost of £954 million. The final stages of cleaning up are forecast to take place between 2092 and 2101. Or, put another way, clearing the area used for nuclear energy will take double the amount of time the plant was actually operational.
To replace the Oldbury plant, a new nuclear station is predicted to open in 2025. A joint venture between German companies E.On and RWE, it will be six times the size of the original station and is currently under construction several hundred metres away from the Oldbury site.
Site director Phil Sprague, who has managed the Oldbury commercial property for several years, said some of the staff were upset at the closure of their workplace, and “Control room staff requested not to press the shutdown button, saying ‘I don’t want it to be me.’
“Some of the workers got quite emotional; they have worked here for 40 years.”
However, with the development of the new plant, redundancies are being kept to a minimum – some will be employed at the new location, while others will be offered retirement packages. Despite the fact that the project is still in the early stages of planning, this news will come as a welcome relief to those concerned about finding alternative employment in this time of job shortages.
With the closure of the Oldbury reactors, Beznau in Switzerland now holds the title of the world’s longest running nuclear power plant, as it became operational in 1969 – two years after Oldbury first powered up its two reactors.
The switch off of the world’s oldest reactor comes a month after Energy Secretary Ed Davey spectacularly reversed his opinions on nuclear power, with the declaration that plans for more generators in Britain would not face opposition from the Cabinet. He had previously branded the use of radioactive materials “dangerous and expensive” to the taxpayer, even leading the Liberal Democrat’s anti-nuclear policy in his role as trade and industry spokesman in 2006.
However, he announced recently that the coalition Government were now backing plans for a new generation of nuclear power plants, saying: “There have been understandable concerns given the expensive mistakes made in the past which the taxpayer is still paying for.
“But the coalition agreement is crystal clear – new nuclear can go ahead as long as it’s without subsidy.”
