Oldest Nuke Power Plant Shut Down

The world's oldest operational nuclear power station was closed Tuesday, ceasing electricity generation after nearly 45 years.

The British Nuclear Group said the Chapelcross station near Annan in Scotland was officially switched off Tuesday morning.

Chapelcross, which began providing electricity for the south of Scotland in 1959, was not originally slated for closing until 2008.

But an economic review of Britain's entire Magnox reactor capability showed Chapelcross and another facility, Calder Hall at Sellafield in northern England, were making a loss. Calder Hall has also been earmarked for closure.

"As the world's currently longest-serving nuclear power station, Chapelcross has earned a rightful place in the record books as a faithful provider of electricity to southwest Scotland and the north of England," said Mark Morant, managing director of British Nuclear Group's Reactor Sites business.

Some 800 people are employed at Chapelcross and Calder Hall; Morant said many would remain at work for some years while the plant is decommissioned.

Environmental campaigners welcomed the decision.

"What we hope now is that BNG will apply the same financial criteria to the rest of its operations and close the reprocessing operations at Sellafield which are also uneconomic," said Jean McSorley of Greenpeace.

Opened in the 1950s, the power stations at Chapelcross, Calder Hall, and Galloway in southwest Scotland were the prototypes for another nine Magnox power stations that were later built across Britain. They use a natural uranium fuel which is contained in magnesium alloy cans.

The reactors are cooled by gas which then passes through heat exchangers to produce steam for the generating turbines.

When Chaplecross was fully operational its four Magnox reactors produced 194 megawatts of electricity.