Dounreay vanishing by the size of a small room every day

Published on Friday 7 May 2010 23:14

THE Dounreay nuclear complex is disappearing at a rate of 100 sq ft – equivalent to a room – every day, new figures have revealed.

The Caithness site is being cleaned up and shut down over the next 15 years at a cost of about 2.6 billion.

It means an ever changing skyline, as 14 buildings, with a total floorspace of almost 30,000 sq ft, are flattened during 2009-10 and a total of 160 redundant structures and buildings having been removed since the start of decommissioning.

The list of properties that have disappeared includes some of the most radiologically contaminated buildings found anywhere in the UK.

These include a suite of cells contaminated by experiments with plutonium liquors and a plant where research reactor fuel was manufactured using highly-enriched uranium.

The clean-up is funded by the UK government through the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).

Steve Beckitt, head of decommissioning at Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd, said: "These figures reflect the pace of the site clean-up and closure.

"Floorspace equivalent to a small room has disappeared every single day at Dounreay for the last five years.

"We still have a lot of work left to do before we can clear away what remains but these figures show the progress that's being made since the NDA took over responsibility for the site."

The shutdown has been accelerated to a completion date of 2025, when all the redundant facilities will have been demolished and the waste made safe for long-term storage or disposal.

The major hazards at Dounreay are the liquid metals used to cool the two fast reactors and waste liquors from historic reprocessing of fast reactor fuel.

Among the largest challenges is the closure of Dounreay's prototype fast reactor.