At a glance

 

2.6 billion
- Estimated cost (£) of site decommissioning

2025-32
- All redundant facilities cleared

2300
- Controls removed on contaminated land

135
- Acreage of licensed site

5
- Number of reactors built and tested at Dounreay and Vulcan

10,000
- Number of fuel elements manufactured for research

10 million
- Cancer diagnoses from material supplied by Dounreay for irradiation in research reactors to generate medical isotopes

585
- GWh of electricity generated by experimental Dounreay fast reactor

9250
-GWh of electricity generated by prototype Dounreay fast reactor

1994
- Year that last reactor at Dounreay shut down

1996
- Year that fuel reprocessing ceased

150+
- Number of facilities cleared away so far

15,000
- Estimated maximum volume (m3) of intermediate-level radioactive waste from decommissioning

175,000
- Estimated maximum volume (m3) of low-level radioactive waste from decommissioning

3000
- Number of people in Scotland employed on decommissioning Dounreay

150 million
- Annual spend (£) on site decommissioning

100
- Average rate of demolition (square feet) every day at Dounreay since the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority took over in 2005

 

  Construction Operation Output Generation
Dounreay Materials Test Reactor 1955-58 1958-69 None None
Dounreay Experimental Fast Reactor 1955-58 1959-77 14MW (electrical), 60MW (thermal) 585 GWh
Dounreay Prototype Fast Reactor 1968-74 1975-94 250MW (electrical), 600MW (thermal) 9250 GWh

Costs:

• The 1954 planning application for construction of an experimental reactor establishment quoted £6 million.

• In 1963, UKAEA general secretary Donald Carmichael quoted a figure of £25 million for the total construction cost – DFR, DMTR, plus the ancillary plant in the Fuel Cycle Area.

• In 1966, when he announced Dounreay had been chosen as the site for construction of the Prototype Fast Reactor, UK Minister for Technology Frank Cousins quoted a construction figure of £30 million.

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