The nuclear power plant that Andrew Wilkins refers to (Letter "Nuclear monsters don't just fade away", Engineers Australia September) is Heysham on the northwest coast of England. I commissioned and operated the 4 AGR reactors on this site. I wish to clarify what happens to a nuclear power plant at the end of its life. First of all, the fuel assemblies are removed from the core and, in the case of Heysham, will be sent to Sellafield for reprocessing. This removes the major radiological hazard from the plant. The reactor containment is put into a storage mode for typically 30 years, requiring minimum surveillance, during which time the radiation from the remaining steel and concrete structure reduces to a level where it can be dismantled, and the waste transferred to a central low or intermediate level repository.
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