{"id":93522,"date":"2018-07-03T14:14:30","date_gmt":"2018-07-03T14:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=dab2156f584890b6312d8b2c3c5e1ce9"},"modified":"2018-07-03T14:14:30","modified_gmt":"2018-07-03T14:14:30","slug":"news-story-sellafields-biggest-chimney-chopped-down-to-size","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=93522","title":{"rendered":"News story: Sellafield\u2019s biggest chimney chopped down to size"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>The site\u2019s tallest chimney is being brought down brick-by-brick using a platform that climbs up the structure itself.<\/p>\n<p>Workers on top of the platform have been removing the concrete and steel structure by hand at a rate of one metre a week.<\/p>\n<p>The painstaking approach is necessary because the 61m chimney sits on top of an old nuclear reprocessing plant and is surrounded by buildings containing hazardous material.<\/p>\n<p>That means traditional explosive, compressed air, or water-related demolition techniques can not be used.<\/p>\n<p>Simon Rowe, of Sellafield Ltd, said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>We\u2019ve safely demolished 15 metres of the stack, taking a quarter off its height.<\/p>\n<p>That means it no longer poses a risk to any of the active plants around it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"last-child\">It\u2019s a major achievement and removes the radiological risk associated with this landmark of the Sellafield skyline.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The tricky nature of the demolition job wasn\u2019t the only complicating factor of the project.<\/p>\n<p>Because the chimney provided ventilation to many other buildings around it, a new stack had to be built and those ventilation lines re-routed.<\/p>\n<p>The new chimney \u2013 known as the <a rel=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.niauk.org\/media-centre\/member-news\/build-it-up-to-knock-it-down\/\">Separation Area Ventilation<\/a> project \u2013 began operating in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>The older chimney is due to disappear completely by 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Its demolition is being delivered via a collaboration between Sellafield Ltd, supply chain partners Nuvia, and their sub-contractors Delta International and Alimak Hek.<\/p>\n<p>The self-climbing platform is similar to the method used to demolish chimneys at London\u2019s iconic Battersea Power Station.<\/p>\n<p>It is held in place by 84 rubber pads which press against the barrel of the chimney. Only friction prevents it from falling.<\/p>\n<p>To move upwards, half of the pads are released, raised and tightened. The other are then raised and the platform inches up to the top of the stack.<\/p>\n<p>It began its 61m ascent in November 2016 and arrived nine months later in August 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the most daring demolition projects ever undertaken at Sellafield has reached a key point.<\/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\/93522"}],"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=93522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}