Nuclear fuel

I had to sign it when I was 18. AFAIK its still in force.

Reply to
dennis
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The sums about radiation levels and shielding would be broadly comparable, though. What Bob says about the older pools is certainly true, not so much because of things randomly dropped in there, but because corrosion or other failures of the magnox cladding then exposed the uranium metal fuel, plus all the fission products, to aqueous corrosion. The presence of magnesium and aluminium corrosion products pushes the pH right up which at least has the merit of reducing the corrosion rate. The unpleasant stuff mostly ends up in a very thick layer of sludge at the bottom, but soluble fission products like Cs will be everywhere.

Random dumping (into a supposedly sealed off vertical shaft) was more the province of Dounreay.

Reply to
newshound

Depends on how you got there. You didn't need it in the CEGB and successor companies, but I had a spell in Magnox which became part of BNFL for a while. I was quite surprised driving to Sellafield one day with a Magnox pass and being waved straight on to site. Luckily I was going to Calder Hall; the cooling towers used to be a good landmark, othewise I might have been driving around for ages.

Reply to
newshound

You were there on business, not as a tourist?

I've been twice as the latter.

Reply to
Tim Watts

How does that work?

Reply to
Huge

You turn up at the visitor centre :)

Seriously... Even Dungeness B has public and school visits - the only restraint is foreigners have to submit their details for a vetting check a couple of weeks or something in advance.

1st visit to Sellafield was the best - 1990s - coach trip around the main site with a BNF Policeman + machine gun. Would the guide up by askign about the chimneys...

2nd visit - not so good - it had been tamed down to visitor centre more or less IIRC.

Reply to
Tim Watts

While I was in Sep, one year we had Greenpeace folk breaking in on a weekend, and running down the main drag of Sep with the Police after them. It were right funny. It looked like something out of Keystone Cops, lol

Reply to
BobH

When we rocked up at Dungeness B, the visitor centre was "permanently closed".

Wylfa's was open, but was the saddest place I've ever been.

Reply to
Huge

Claims to be open now - my son's school may be planning a trip there:

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I wish the nearby windfarm had a visitor centre so I could go and mock them ;)

Reply to
Tim Watts

Well, there's the problem with UK energy policy right there; it changes all the time.

:o)

Reply to
Huge

Yes

Reply to
bert

A lot of them closed down for a while, I believe some of them are open again.

Reply to
newshound

They did close most visitor centres as very few people visited.

I took the family to one a few years back only to get there half an hour after they stopped doing the tours. However the guide took us around anyway and we didn't have to stay on the tourist path. The turbine room is DEAFENING.

Reply to
dennis

Certainly assuming it had 3000 rpm sets, you should not been taken in there without ear protection. I still remember the near-painful levels, to 18 year old ears, at Kingston Power Station in the 1960's. I'm not sure whether there was a macho element among staff, or whether they were simply all half deaf.

The levels at Oldbury Power station with four pole generators, hence

1500 rpm sets were a lot lower, but IIRC hearing protection was still mandatory.
Reply to
newshound

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