The Site
Welcome to Dounreay, the UK’s centre of fast reactor research and development from 1955 until 1994 and now Scotland’s largest nuclear clean-up and demolition project.
This was where some of the nation’s leading scientists and engineers experimented with plutonium, uranium and other metals to give Britain the knowledge to generate electricity using a more advanced type of nuclear reactor.
Their research and development is now complete. The equipment and materials they used to gain this knowledge is being packed up and the environment restored by a new generation of staff skilled in nuclear clean-up.
After four decades of research, stretching back to the earliest days in the industry, taking apart their legacy is a major undertaking.
Today, Dounreay is a site of construction, demolition and waste management, all of it designed to return the site to as near as practicable its original condition.
The experimental nature of many of its redundant facilities means the clean-up and demolition requires innovation as well as great care.
The latest plan (2009) for decommissioning the site anticipates all redundant buildings will be cleared by 2025 at a cost of £2.6 billion. Controls on the use of contaminated land are expected to remain in place until 2300.
Decommissioning Dounreay is recognised internationally as one of the most complex nuclear clean-up challenges in the world. The skills and enterprise it fosters are giving Scottish companies a platform to compete in the global decommissioning market.
Great efforts are made to foster a strong culture of safety
Dounreay from the air
Decommissioning of PFR
.jpg)
Dounreay's fuel fabrication plant is demolished in 2008
People entering the site must wear personal protective equipment
Inside the DFR sphere
.jpg&width=85&height=68)
