The Active Waste Retrieval Programme at Harwell

摘要

In the 1930s, the RAF established an airfield at Harwell which, at the end of the second World War, was taken over by the Ministry of Supply and became the Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE). As the UK centre for research and development into civil nuclear power, the site developed rapidly through the 1950s. The old RAF buildings were adapted and new buildings added to provide a wide range of experimental facilities including research reactors, accelerators, radioactive handling facilities and a variety of research laboratories. In 1954, the UKAEA (United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority) was established and assumed ownership of the Harwell site. By the late 1980s, nuclear power had become a mature technology and the requirements for nuclear research and development reduced significantly. The last three reactors on the Harwell site closed in 1990 together with a number of other facilities used for nuclear work. For many years much of the work on the Harwell site had been carried out on a commercial basis and in 1996 many of the business activities of UKAEA were priyatised as AEA Technology plc.