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In 1981 BNFL's Windscale and Calder Works was renamed Sellafield as part of a major reorganisation of the site and there was a consolidation of management under one head of the entire BNFL Sellafield site.
Apr 1, 2005 · BNFL renamed the plant Sellafield in 1981, but many environmentalists refused to accept the re-branding, and still refer to the site as Windscale. The Sellafield mixed oxide (Mox) plant was...
- Sellafield The Town
- Sellafield Is Changing
- 70 Years of National Service
- Did You Know?
- From Farm to Munitions
- The UK’s Atomic Weapons Programme
- A Nuclear Deterrent
- Why Sellafield?
- Working at Windscale
- The Windscale Fire
Covering a footprint of 2 square miles, hundreds of buildings and thousands of people, Sellafield needs some of the same infrastructures as a small town. Did you know that Sellafield has: 1. an active and non-active laundry? 2. a postal service? 3. canteens? 4. shops? 5. utilities, including water and steam? 6. a road and rail network? 7. an armed ...
Here we’ll explain what Sellafield was when the site first opened, what it is today – and what it’s becoming. The best of the best people work here, in a range of extraordinary roles. And we have a critical mission.
In 1947, the Sellafield site opened with a single mission – the production of plutonium, a radioactive chemical element for use in Britain’s nuclear deterrent. As the nation’s priorities shifted, pioneers at the site: 1. designed and built the world’s first commercial-sized nuclear power station 2. recycled nuclear fuel so that both plutonium and u...
Sellafield covers 2-square milesit operates 24-hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a yearit’s home to 4 of the biggest nuclear risks and hazards in Europeover 10,000 staff operate the siteAs far back as 1611, people have lived on the land on which Sellafield now sits. Originally, there were 7 tenant farms at High Sellafield and another 7 at Low Sellafield. Today’s nuclear site covers the area that was once known as Low Sellafield. The site was chosen as a TNT production plant during World War II because of its remote location. It wa...
As Britain celebrated the end of World War II, new tensions occupied the political agenda. Foremost was the increasing tension between east and west, known as the Cold War. Sellafield’s support of the atomic weapons programme that followed created a nuclear legacy that makes up some of the most hazardous work done on the site today.
Atomic weapons were seen as the best deterrent to a third world war. Britain had been exploring their use and worked with American scientists in the Manhattan Project. Although successful, the collaboration was brought to an end with the signing of the McMahon Act in the US Congress. The McMahon Act prohibited America from sharing atomic secrets wi...
The Sellafield site had already been used to support national defence, thanks to its years as a munitions factory during World War II. It also had a strong local workforce, was remote and had a good water supply in the form of the River Calder.
Work started on the Sellafield site – which was renamed Windscale – in 1947. It took more than 5,300 construction workers, engineers and architects less than five years to design and build a fully operational nuclear facility. To put this into context, in the same time that it took to build the Olympic Stadium at the start of the 21stcentury, the W...
During the construction of the Windscale buildings, Chief Engineer, John Cockcroft, had insisted that filters were installed at the top of the chimney stacks. In October 1957, a fire broke out in Windscale Reactor 1. It was the filter at the top of Windscale Pile Chimney 1 that stopped the disaster from becoming a catastrophe as it limited the amou...
Jun 9, 2022 · The Magnox Swarf Storage Silo (MSSS) at Sellafield in Cumbria has been described as the most hazardous building in Western Europe. Even Sellafield Ltd, which now manages the site on behalf of the ...
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Oct 24, 2016 · It was largely based on the testimony of an ex-employee and whistleblower and included interviews with members of the management team of NMP -- the British, French and American consortium that lost the £9bn contract to run the site earlier this year.
Originally called Windscale, the nuclear site was renamed as Sellafield by BNFL in 1981, in what was considered to be a vain attempt to improve its poor public image after a string of accidents.
Mar 12, 2020 · Sellafield, formerly a Royal Ordnance Factory, began producing plutonium in 1947. For the next decade, it was central to the UK’s nuclear weapons programme, before it was taken over by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority in 1954.
