{"id":86156,"date":"2017-11-09T09:30:38","date_gmt":"2017-11-09T09:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=ffdc60644e495aa9b6e56526b6faebf7"},"modified":"2017-11-09T09:30:38","modified_gmt":"2017-11-09T09:30:38","slug":"news-story-dounreay-flies-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=86156","title":{"rendered":"News story: Dounreay flies high"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>The technology sees a camera mounted on an unmanned aerial vehicle to carry out tasks that would otherwise have been done by workers on platforms.<\/p>\n<p>Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd (DSRL), the company in charge of decommissioning the nuclear site, carries out around 50 building inspections each year &#8211; helping maintain buildings that play an important role in nuclear decommissioning, clean-up and waste management operations.<\/p>\n<p>The switch to using drones means around \u00a3100,000 worth of savings to the UK taxpayer, which can be used for other front-line decommissioning and hazard reduction work.<\/p>\n<p>John Moar, a senior electrical engineer at the site, is the brains behind the initiative and carried out research into the potential for using drones.<\/p>\n<p>Dounreay falls within a strictly enforced air exclusion zone and is protected by armed officers from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary.<\/p>\n<p>John undertook a Civil Aviation Authority course in order to secure an exemption from the no-fly zone, before the site bought a drone that was capable of carrying out the inspections for just \u00a36,000.<\/p>\n<p>The drone paid for itself on its first outing to inspect two 20-metre high ventilation stacks. Previously, this work would have needed scaffolding and a hired mobile platform, costing thousands of pounds a week.<\/p>\n<p>John said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The team were delighted at the quality and detail of the images and how easy and safe it was to get them,\u201d said John.<\/p>\n<p>Clearly, there are very strict rules in place to protect the safety and security of nuclear sites, so we had to follow a stringent and detailed process to get all required agreements for using drones at Dounreay.<\/p>\n<p class=\"last-child\">The potential for using drones doesn\u2019t stop here, I can see how we\u2019d use similar technology for things like 3D modelling and environmental surveys.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Drones are occupying the skies above the Dounreay nuclear site, at Caithness, carrying out building inspection work, improving safety and saving money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86156"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}