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Forty years for Reprocessing Plant
Forty years to the day after becoming operational, Brian Watson, Managing Director, Management Services, Sellafield along with Alan Britcher, Head of Magnox and Calder for British Nuclear Group unveiled a plaque at B205 reprocessing plant to mark the anniversary.
Commissioned on 11 June 1964, B205 was the first large-scale commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the world.
Incorporating the most up-to-date process monitoring and surveillance techniques, enhanced protection for the workforce by remote technology and improved radiological monitoring, the project employed some of the finest and most innovative scientific, technical, engineering and construction personnel in the country.
Construction of the plant from its initial foundations to the completion of equipment, instrumentation and control systems took less than three years. The quality of the work, together with the excellent engineering and design details, has enabled the plant to operate continuously and safely far in excess of its original estimated design life of 20 years.
Since 1964 nearly four million fuel rods have been fed into the plant, reprocessing over 42,000 tonnes of spent fuel. The electricity generated by this amount of fuel in the Magnox reactors would power a three-bar electric fire for over 35 million years.
Since it started 40 years ago, B205 and its sister plant B268 have provided over 10,000 man-years of employment.
