Calder Hall

F1

Decommissioned Reactors ( gross ):

The nuclear power plant Calder Hall was the first nuclear power plant commercially used to produce electricity. It is located on the grounds of the world's known nuclear complex at Sellafield in Cumbria, in North West England on the Irish Sea.

The decision to build the plant was made in 1953 by the government of Winston Churchill, and on 17 October 1956, the opening by Queen Elizabeth II instead.

Operation

The project was supported by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority ( UKAEA ), codenamed PIPPA ( Pressurised Pile Producing Power and Plutonium ) performed to describe the civil and military purpose of the plant. Purpose of investing in Calder Hall and the four Scottish reactors in Chapel Cross was next to the power generation, the production of plutonium for British nuclear weapons.

Initially, the reactors were used in Calder Hall primarily to produce weapons-grade plutonium, with two fillings per year. Starting in 1964, mainly commercial fuel cycles for electricity production were used. In April 1995, the British government announced that the production of plutonium for weapons purposes would have been set.

The two parts of the plant Calder Hall A and B each comprised two reactors cooled by carbon dioxide, graphite moderated Magnox type that was rarely used outside the UK. The net electrical capacity of 60 MW was reduced in 1973 to 50 megawatts.

Calder Hall had four cooling towers, which were built in the years 1950-1956, as the plant had a high demand for cooling water. The towers were 88 feet high.

The operation of the system was discontinued after almost half a century on 31 March 2003. Until that time, Calder Hall was the longest serving nuclear power plant in the world.

On 29 September 2007 the cooling towers fell after a controlled demolition as a first step towards the decommissioning of the power plant.

Data of the reactor units

The Calder Hall nuclear power plant has a total of four blocks: