Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd

Monday 22 December 2008

November performance report published

Dounreay's latest monthly performance report has been published.

Wednesday 17 December 2008

Breeder element removal tool installed in fast reactor

A versatile remotely-operated machine that will cut the heart out of Dounreay’s fast reactor has been installed in the sphere.

Tuesday 16 December 2008

Shaft clean-up nominated for top award

A ground-breaking project to recover nuclear waste from a shaft beneath Dounreay is in the running for a top award.

Monday 15 December 2008

'Great achievement' says director as first fuel pond is cleaned out

 Dounreay workers have completed the clean up of the first of Dounreay’s fuel ponds. As well as being a first for Dounreay, it is also the first pond at a Scottish nuclear facility to be decommissioned, and one of the first in the UK

Friday 12 December 2008

Fast reactors light up nation's museum

It featured on a postage stamp, is used by media worldwide to illustrate nuclear power and even was replicated in the shape of cigarette lighters.

Tuesday 9 December 2008

Dounreay takes top business title in careers awards

Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd has a won a top national award for its work with young people.

Monday 8 December 2008

NDA competition for site licence company

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority today announced its timetable for competing the ownership of Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd.

Wednesday 3 December 2008

December issue of Dounreay News now published

The December issue of the site's magazine, Dounreay News, has now been published.  This month its a bumper 16-page edition.

Wednesday 3 December 2008

October's site performance report is out now

The site's performance report for October has been published.

Friday 28 November 2008

Dounreay recognised for work with young people

Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd has earned national recognition for helping young people in the north Highlands realise their full potential.

Wednesday 26 November 2008

Local clubs benefit from apprentice walk

Dounreay apprentices' annual sponsored walk from the site to Thurso has raised £1,350 for local charities and clubs.

Thursday 20 November 2008

TV viewers look inside historic plutonium cell

Fifty years ago, it was the hub of plutonium research in the UK. Today, all that remains is a shell of a building awaiting demolition.

Thursday 20 November 2008

Preserving Dounreay's heritage attracts media interest

 Heritage officer James Gunn is getting used to being in the limelight.

Wednesday 19 November 2008

Dounreay welcomes expert report on particles

Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd today welcomed an independent expert report about radioactive particles in the marine environment around the site.

Wednesday 12 November 2008

Training move opens up new business opportunities

Dounreay’s training and development team has become the first of its potential spin-out businesses to move off the site.

Tuesday 11 November 2008

Site alert to signal Armistice Day commemoration

Dounreay's site alert will be sounded briefly at 1100hrs on November 11 to enable workers to observe the two-minute silence in commemoration of Armistice Day, subject to normal safety considerations. It will be sounded briefly again at 1102hrs to signal the end of the two minutes.

Tuesday 4 November 2008

Demolition of plutonium laboratory begins with stack

 Demolition has begun at the plutonium research laboratory with the removal of the building’s ventilation stack.

Monday 3 November 2008

November's Dounreay News out now

The November issue of the site's newspaper, Dounreay News, was published today.

Monday 3 November 2008

September's Performance Report published

Dounreay's latest monthly performance report has been published.

Tuesday 28 October 2008

Fuel crushing plant dismantled

Another legacy of Dounreay’s commercial fuel-reprocessing past has now been dismantled. 

Thursday 16 October 2008

Cementation plant up and running again

Dounreay’s cementation plant went back to work this year, following an extensive remediation programme.

Thursday 16 October 2008

Dounreay announces new Head of Human Resources

Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd has announced a change to its senior management.

Monday 13 October 2008

Largest lab comes apart

Over a quarter of the laboratories in Dounreay’s Fuel Cycle Area, which provided support to the whole of the site, have now been taken apart. 

Thursday 9 October 2008

Countdown to demolition for plutonium criticality laboratory

The last ventilation fan has been turned off for the final time in what was once Dounreay’s dirtiest building.

Tuesday 7 October 2008

Filter idea a crushing success

Clever ideas are helping to improve ways of removing radioactive waste from some of Dounreay’s dirtiest plants.

Wednesday 1 October 2008

Clean-up featured in 32-page colour tabloid

More than 100 images of decommissioning work at Dounreay are featured in a 32-page, full-colour supplement published by North of Scotland Newspapers.

Wednesday 1 October 2008

Drillers clear way for robots to begin fuel cells clean-up

Workers are drilling through the concrete that surrounds Dounreay’s uranium fuel reprocessing plant to let demolition robots move inside and begin dismantling it.

Monday 29 September 2008

Dounreay News published

The October edition has been published of Dounreay News, the monthly site newspaper.

Monday 29 September 2008

August performance report published

Dounreay's latest monthly performance report has been published.

Monday 29 September 2008

DSRL signs £13m contract with BNS Nuclear Services

Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd has signed a contract with BNS Nuclear Services for maintenance and operations in support of decommissioning the site’s two fast reactors.

Tuesday 16 September 2008

New programme manager for Dounreay

Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd has announced the appointment of a new site programme manager, Andy Malkin, who succeeds Alastair Macdonald.

Thursday 11 September 2008

Jobs joy for 100 on major ventilation contract

A hundred people have found work on the largest manufacturing job ever undertaken in the Highlands for Dounreay.

Thursday 11 September 2008

'Exercise Foxtrot' brings brigades together

Firefighters from Highlands & Islands Fire & Rescue Service have tested their response to an incident at Dounreay in a joint exercise with members of the site fire brigade.

Wednesday 10 September 2008

Dounreay reviews options for all wastes

Dounreay is carrying out a review of how it manages all types of waste arising from the site closure programme.

Thursday 4 September 2008

Dounreay publishes 08/09 socio-economic plan

Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd has published its socio-economic development plan for 2008/09, setting out the actions it is taking to manage the impact of site closure.

Wednesday 3 September 2008

Site closure performance report published

Dounreay's monthly performance report, setting out progress during July to decommission the site together with safety and environmental measures, has been published.

Monday 1 September 2008

September issue of 'Dounreay News' published

The September issue of the site newspaper, Dounreay News, has been published.

Tuesday 26 August 2008

Seabed particle clean-up underway

A new phase in the clean-up of Dounreay is underway with the start of underwater operations to demonstrate the use of remote equipment to remove particles from the seabed.

Monday 25 August 2008

Dounreay's 1000th apprentice earns his "ticket"

The 1000th young person to be taken on as an apprentice at Dounreay was among 15 newly-qualified workers who received their certificates at their site’s annual prize-giving.

Thursday 21 August 2008

Demolition of "atomic factory" broadcast via Internet

>Demolition of Scotland’s “atomic factory” is now being broadcast on the Internet.

Wednesday 20 August 2008

Challenge our ways of working, supply chain urged

Dounreay’s supply chain has been urged to challenge established ways of working and come up with more innovative ways to decommission the site for less cost to the taxpayer.

Monday 18 August 2008

Milestone in hazard reduction as liquid metal is destroyed

A clean-up team has safely destroyed the first of the major hazards from the experimental fast reactor programme at Dounreay.

Wednesday 6 August 2008

June performance report is published

Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd has published its monthly performance report for June.

Wednesday 6 August 2008

Companies invited to suppliers day

Dozens of companies have signed up for a suppliers day event being held by Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd.

Friday 1 August 2008

Peer reveals family connection to Dounreay

 Dounreay’s historic plutonium research laboratory, now in the final stages of clean up, is still attracting visitors keen to see the building before its demolition.

Friday 1 August 2008

First stage of shaft clean-up project comes to an end

At midday on Wednesday 30th July, the first phase of the project to clean up Dounreay’s historic waste shaft came to an end ahead of schedule with a handshake and signatures.

Friday 1 August 2008

August issue of Dounreay News published today

The August issue of the site's newspaper, Dounreay News, has been published.

Monday 28 July 2008

Dounreay history brings windfall for charities

Charities in Caithness and north Sutherland are set for a cash windfall thanks to a new book marking the 50th anniversary of the nuclear experiment at Dounreay.

Wednesday 16 July 2008

Scottish Minister steps inside country's biggest nuclear clean-up

Scottish Government Minister Richard Lochhead today visited Dounreay to see for himself how waste from the shutdown and clean-up of Scotland’s biggest nuclear site is being managed.

Tuesday 15 July 2008

£50m plant will take breeder from fast reactor

One of the biggest engineering jobs at Dounreay is nearing completion.

Thursday 10 July 2008

Charities benefit from Dounreay's safety awards

Charities benefited to the tune of £2,000 from this year’s Dounreay Director’s Safety, Health and Environment awards.

Wednesday 9 July 2008

Dounreay's pioneering history is retold in 50th anniversary book

A new book captures the remarkable story of how a remote farming area in the Scottish Highlands was catapulted to the forefront of nuclear development 50 years ago.

Monday 7 July 2008

Next steps to decommission Dounreay's Shaft

Dounreay’s shaft isolation project is nearing completion so what happens next on one of the world’s biggest decommissioning projects?

Tuesday 1 July 2008

2025 vision of Dounreay's waste is published

Dounreay today paints the most vivid picture yet of how the site will look once decommissioning is complete in 2025.

Monday 30 June 2008

Public meeting on low-level waste disposal plan

Dounreay is inviting the public to attend a drop-in meeting to discuss its proposed low-level waste disposal facilities on Tuesday July 1 between 7pm and 9pm in Reay Village Hall.

Monday 30 June 2008

French TV spotlight on site clean-up

Dounreay’s clean-up and demolition is to feature in a 90-minute programme being made for broadcast on French and German television.

Friday 20 June 2008

Book to tell 50 years of Dounreay

The story of Dounreay, its leading role in the world quest for energy and its impact on the wellbeing of the far north of Scotland are all captured in a new book to be published next month.

Friday 13 June 2008

World Environment Day celebrated at Dounreay

What is the theme of the 2008 World Environment Day? In which city would you find the Spanish Steps?

Friday 13 June 2008

Old reprocessing plant is broken up

A decommissioning team is getting ready to begin breaking up the former research reactor fuel reprocessing plant at Dounreay.

Friday 6 June 2008

Clean-up companies descend on Dounreay for trade show

Dounreay has hosted the UK’s premier trade show for engineering equipment and services to the nuclear decommissioning industry.

Thursday 5 June 2008

Boreholes to test hydraulic isolation of shaft

Another 21 boreholes have been drilled around the underground waste shaft at Dounreay.

Wednesday 4 June 2008

Overhead travelling crane modernised to help clean up

 The 25 ton electric overhead travelling crane serving the Dounreay materials test reactor support building recently had a complete overhaul and update. This involved lifting the body of the crane out through the roof of the building. 

Tuesday 3 June 2008

Site safety record hits three million hours

Dounreay has clocked up more than three million man-hours without a lost-time accident.

Friday 30 May 2008

June issue of Dounreay News published

The June issue of the site's newspaper Dounreay News has been published.

Thursday 29 May 2008

Clean-up contract goes to BNS Nuclear Services

Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd today announced its preferred bidder for a contract worth in the region of £13 million to support its decommissioning of the site’s two fast reactors.

Thursday 29 May 2008

Destruction of sodium vessels almost complete

Work is well underway at the Janetstown off-site test facility near Thurso to remove clean sodium from an assortment of vessels that were stored on the Dounreay site. 

Wednesday 28 May 2008

Staff learn about skills and training opportunities

Union reps, college lecturers and training staff came together at Dounreay to promote opportunities for workers to learn new skills and develop different careers.

Wednesday 28 May 2008

Site publishes monthly performance report

A new monthly performance report is published today by Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd.

Friday 23 May 2008

Dounreay restarts LLW disposal planning application

Dounreay Site Restoration Limited has requested Highland Council to restart the planning application process to build facilities for the disposal of low level radioactive waste from decommissioning the site.

Wednesday 21 May 2008

New commercial head at Dounreay

Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd has appointed Tom Cummings as its new head of commercial.

Friday 16 May 2008

Historical water tank demolished

Dounreay’s decommissioning team has knocked down one of the oldest structures on the site. 

Thursday 15 May 2008

Dounreay to issue new performance report

A new monthly performance report is to be published by Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd.

Monday 12 May 2008

Workers are lifeblood of Dounreay

None of us come to work expecting to save a life.

Monday 5 May 2008

De-cladding operations a success

Workers using remote technology are successfully dealing with the irradiated ‘breeder’ fuel elements from the Dounreay Fast Reactor.

Thursday 1 May 2008

Dounreay News May edition

The May issue of the site's newspaper, Dounreay News, has been published.  To read, click here

Thursday 1 May 2008

Director's Quarterly Report published

The Director's Quarterly Report provides an update on the site's decomissioning, safety, environmental and general performance. It is produced for consideration at the Dounreay Stakeholder Group meetings.

Thursday 1 May 2008

Investigation into old diffuser complete

The latest investigation of the seabed where the Dounreay effluent discharge systems are located was completed on April 22. 

Thursday 1 May 2008

Welsh delegates learn from Caithness experience

Staff from the Dounreay site met with representatives from Wales last week as part of a two day visit to Caithness to learn from the work carried out on regeneration of the community.

Thursday 1 May 2008

Works gets underway to develop strategy for site heritage

Preserving the story of 50 years of research and development and the decommissioning challenges faced will be an important part of Caithness heritage for future generations.

Thursday 1 May 2008

Beth goes down in history

Thurso High school pupil, Beth Henderson, is too young to be a part of the Dounreay story but she has contributed to preserving a little bit of the site\'s heritage for years to come.

Tuesday 22 April 2008

Shaft waste shredder goes on trial

Machinery that can shred steel and other material recovered from Dounreay’s shaft and silo has gone on trial at a test facility in Caithness.

Tuesday 22 April 2008

Change at the top

The site welcomes James Biggs who will take over responsibility for delivering essential site services to support the decommissioning programme. 

Friday 18 April 2008

Safer site earns £20k dividend for charity

Dounreay’s improving safety performance has landed local charities a £20,000 windfall.

Thursday 17 April 2008

Plutonium clean-up enters final stages

Work has started on the penultimate phase of cleaning out an old plutonium test cell that many people thought could never be decommissioned safely.

Thursday 17 April 2008

NDA confirms site funding

Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd has received confirmation from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority of its funding arrangements for 2008/09.

Thursday 17 April 2008

Commissioner rules on nuclear storage information

In March 2006, a journalist requested 11 documents from UKAEA that related to safety working parties and the arrangements for storage of nuclear and fissile materials at Dounreay.

Wednesday 16 April 2008

NDA bosses see major hazard being destroyed

The two men in charge of Britain's nuclear clean-up programme have seen how one of their biggest hazards is being destroyed at Dounreay.

Wednesday 16 April 2008

Investigation at old diffuser continues

Divers took to the sea on April 15 to investigate the old subsea diffuser system that was used to discharge radioactive effluent from Dounreay until 1998.

Tuesday 15 April 2008

Dounreay staff learn from American experience

Staff from Dounreay travelled to the USA to learn from the decommissioning and regeneration experiences of American nuclear decommissioning.

Friday 11 April 2008

Drive-through building site keeps Dounreay open

One of the most challenging projects carried out at Dounreay has involved not a drop of radioactive waste.

Thursday 10 April 2008

Grout curtain in place around shaft

Monday 7 April 2008

Astronaut visits Dounreay

Dounreay folk were given an unique opportunity to hear former NASA space shuttle pilot Duane Carey when he came to the site recently to give a talk on his career and experiences in the space shuttle programme.

Friday 4 April 2008

Particle clean-up trials successful

Remotely-operated equipment designed to recover radioactive particles from the seabed has been demonstrated successfully offshore at Dounreay.

Wednesday 2 April 2008

Safety milestone for waste team

Dounreay's waste services unit has clocked up a remarkable two years without a lost-time accident.

Tuesday 1 April 2008

Dounreay News April edition

The April issue of the Dounreay News, the site's newspaper, has now been published.

Tuesday 1 April 2008

New identity for site

A new brand identity has been developed for Dounreay as part of its transition to a site licence company.

Tuesday 1 April 2008

Technical media visit Dounreay

A group of journalists with a special interest in nuclear decommissioning has visited Dounreay to see at first hand progress being made to clean up and demolish the experimental site.

Tuesday 1 April 2008

DSRL becomes site licence company

The management and contractual arrangements for delivery of the site clean-up programme at Dounreay change today.

Friday 28 March 2008

Breakthroughs in Hazard Reduction

UKAEA is on course to hand over the clean-up of Dounreay to a subsidiary company on April 1 on the back of significant progress during March to reduce the major hazards at the site.

Wednesday 19 March 2008

Camera watches sodium drain from reactor

Dounreay’s Prototype Fast Reactor has now been drained of all 1500 tonnes of liquid metal that once flowed through its primary and secondary circuits.

Wednesday 30 January 2008

Gone in 90 seconds

It's already been cut from 100 years to 25 years. Now, the timescale for cleaning up and knocking down Dounreay has been accelerated to just 90 seconds in a new video showing how the site will look when decommissioning is complete.

Thursday 17 January 2008

Local firm awarded major contract

Local engineering firm JGC Engineering & Technical Services Ltd has been awarded a major contract vital to the environment and decommissioning of the Dounreay site.