Sellafield

Sellafield, formerly known as Windscale, is a large nuclear site on the coast of Cumbria, England. Now it mostly does nuclear waste processing and storage and nuclear decommissioning. It used to be a nuclear power plant from 1956 to 2003, and nuclear fuel reprocessing from 1952 to 2022. It is a big place, 265 hectares (650 acres), and has more than 200 nuclear facilities and more than 1,000 buildings.

Sellafield Media

• 

  The site in 1956. In foreground Calder Hall cooling towers and two Magnox reactors. Background L to R: First Generation reprocessing plant, Windscale pile chimneys.

• 

  Queen Elizabeth II officially opening Calder Hall nuclear power station on 17 October 1956

• 

  Chart of the estimated growing decommission cost for Sellafield versus other sites 2005-2120 (undiscounted), revisions until 2019.

• 

  1985 view. L to R; The "Golf Ball" WAGR reactor, the Windscale Piles with their large exhaust stacks. The water vapour is from the Calder Hall cooling towers.

• 

  The Magnox Swarf Storage silo pictured from the air on the Sellafield Site. At the time the photo was taken, the silo had undergone significant modernisation work to facilitate the retrieval operations.

• 

  Calder Hall, United Kingdom – The world's first industrial-scale nuclear power station. The four reactors have two shared turbine halls between 1 & 2 and between 3 & 4.

• 

  Sellafield Waste Vitrification Plant

• 

  2005 view of the site, with the Calder Hall cooling towers still standing. The Irish Sea is in the background

• 

  The Sellafield Visitor Centre in the late 1980s; it is now demolished.