{"id":94903,"date":"2018-08-20T14:00:03","date_gmt":"2018-08-20T14:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=a1f6e286f7fa909b841e580904f127a3"},"modified":"2018-08-20T14:00:03","modified_gmt":"2018-08-20T14:00:03","slug":"news-story-giant-crane-to-help-bring-historic-chimney-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=94903","title":{"rendered":"News story: Giant crane to help bring historic chimney down"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The 110m structure \u2013 the scene of Britain\u2019s worst nuclear accident \u2013 will begin to disappear later this year.<\/p>\n

A giant crane has been constructed to bring it down.<\/p>\n

Timelapse of crane erection<\/a><\/p>\n

The 152m crane is the tallest structure ever built at Sellafield, just six metres shorter than the Blackpool Tower.<\/p>\n

It will begin work this autumn, removing and lowering chunks of the chimney cut out using diamond wire saws.<\/p>\n

Duncan Thompson from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said:<\/p>\n

\n

The complex task of decommissioning and demolishing the Windscale Pile One stack has reached an important stage.<\/p>\n

It is another example of the ingenuity that goes into solving the UK\u2019s decommissioning problems.<\/p>\n

Once demolition begins it will be a very visible demonstration of the work being done to make Sellafield a safer place.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Windscale Pile One chimney, with its distinctive top-heavy appearance, has dominated the Sellafield skyline for nearly 70 years.<\/p>\n

Famously, its filtration system was a last-minute addition, placed unusually at its summit.<\/p>\n

Despite being mockingly referred to as \u2018Cockroft\u2019s Folly\u2019, after its designer Sir John Cockroft, it turned out to be a masterstroke.<\/p>\n

In 1957, fire broke out in the Windscale Pile One reactor. The sky-high filters captured an estimated 95 per cent of the radioactive dust created.<\/p>\n

Now, the chimney is a decommissioning project.<\/p>\n

Teams from Sellafield Ltd and its supply chain are working together to safely pull it down.<\/p>\n

The first piece to go will be the square-shaped \u2018diffuser\u2019 at the top.<\/p>\n

Because buildings containing nuclear material surround the stack, traditional demolition techniques like explosives cannot be used.<\/p>\n

George Frost from Sellafield Ltd, said:<\/p>\n

\n

We\u2019re making visible progress on this demolition, and it won\u2019t be long now until we start to see the diffuser removed.<\/p>\n

The chimney is one of the iconic legacies of Sellafield\u2019s past, so the skyline change as the chimney is removed will be significant.<\/p>\n

This has been a challenging piece of work, so everyone is pleased to see work progressing. This is thanks not only to the Sellafield and supply chain teams involved now, but over more than a generation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Preparations to pull down the Windscale Pile One chimney are now complete.<\/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\/94903"}],"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=94903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94903\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=94903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=94903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=94903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}