World’s First Commercial Nuclear Power Station To Be Demolished.

After 47 years of generating electricity the four 50 year old towers at Sellafield’s Calder Hall site in Cumbria, England, are to be demolished.

A demolition team will use explosives to bring down the 289ft towers, which were opened by the Queen on October 17, 1956. Sellafield faced years of criticism and after a public consultation, permission was given in June of 2005 to decommission Calder Hall, which had stopped generating electricity back in 2003.

The four towers provided cooling water to the closed energy system, cooling the water on its rturn to the turbine hall, a key role in power production.

The towers contain asbestos which means their demolition is part of the largest asbestos removal project in Europe, according to a Sellafield spokesman.

After the demolition, it will take a reported 12 weeks to remove the rubble, with the towers’ steel bars being recycled if possible.

Back in the day, Calder Hall was used to produce weapons-grade plutonium, with two fuel loads per year. Electricity production was a secondary purpose.

1964 saw Calder Hall mainly used on commercial fuel cycles, but it was not until April 1995 that the government announced that all production of plutonium for weapons purposes had stopped.