Calder Hall, the world's first full-scale commercial nuclear power station to enter operation, was opened by Queen Elizabeth II this month, 67 years ago.
Calder Hall was a pioneer for the global nuclear industry and was opened by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth on the Sellafield site in Seascale on October 17, 1956.
It provided electricity for the Sellafield site and for the National Grid. When it was brought online, Workington became the first town in the world to receive heat, light, and power from nuclear power.
After 47 years of safe operations, the station closed in 2003 and work to safely remove Calder Hall’s spent nuclear fuel was completed in 2019.
This involved the retrieval of 38,953 used fuel rods from the plant’s four reactors which were transferred in shielded flasks to Sellafield’s Fuel Handling Plant. After being cooled in a storage pond, the casings were removed and the rods were taken to Sellafield’s Magnox Reprocessing Plant to be reprocessed.
The buildings are now in a 'care and maintenance' phase prior to being demolished.
The station’s cooling towers were demolished in 2007 to make space to build other facilities to support the wider decommissioning work at Sellafield.
Calder Hall’s design was the template for Britain's first generation of nuclear power stations, known as the Magnox fleet.
There were four reactors at Calder Hall, each with four heat exchangers.
These were used to convert the heat produced by the nuclear reactions inside the reactor core to boil the water and create steam.
This was then transferred by insulated pipes to one of the two turbine halls and used to turn the turbines.
To mark the anniversary, Sellafield shared two images on Facebook, showing how the control room stood the test of time.
Sellafield Ltd wrote: "Calder Hall was officially opened 67 years ago this week.
"Over its 40 years of operations, many things happened in the world.
"While lots of things changed around Calder Hall, inside the station lots of things stayed the same."
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