Calder Hall reactors

B. Cutts et al., "Graphite Moderated Thermal Reactor Calculations tor the Calder Hall Reactors, Proc, 2nd UN Conf. OH Atomic Energy—Geneva 1938, 12, United Nations, New York (1958). 

The production piles had been intended to have a life of ten years. By 1957, Pile 2 had been operating for six years. Now that the reactors at Calder Hall had become available, the need to use Pile 2 to produce plutonium was much less acute. Isotope production was another matter improvements in weapon technology meant that polonium would no longer be needed, but instead the demand for tritium had increased considerably. Producing tritium in the Calder Hall reactors would be possible, but it was thought that new fuel rods containing 93% uranium 235 would... 

The magnox stations were intended as an improved version of the PIPPA or Calder Hall reactors, but whereas Calder Hall was optimised to produce plutonium. 

Hinton, Sir C., The place of the Calder Hall type of reactor in nuclear power generation, J. Brit. Nucl. Energy Conf, 1957, 2, 43 46. 

By the end of 1952 it was certain that a PIPPA design had been produced which could and should be built. A summary report was prepared in January 1953, and soon after approval was granted for construction of the first two Magnox reactors at Calder Hall. Before the first reactor went critical in 1956 work had started on a further two reactors at Calder Hall, and all four were at power in 1959. Construction at Chapelcross, in the southwest of Scotland, began in 1955. The fist... 

Calder Hall power station in Cumbria, UK, on the site of the present-day nuclear power complex at Sellafield (Figure 6.11), opened in 1956 and was the first nuclear reactor in the world to produce electricity on an industrial scale. 

British Nuclear Fuels pic (BNFL) provide a complete nuclear fuel cycle service with its sites at Springfields (AGR/Magnox Fuel Fabrication) near Preston and Sellafield (MOX Fuel Fabrication and Reprocessing) in Cumbria. BNFL also generates electricity using Magnox Reactors at Sellafield (Calder Hall) and Chaplecross in Scotland. This paper provides an overview of the Windscale Vitrification Plant (WVP) and reviews the major safety issues associated with vitrification operations. The practicalities of vitrification of Pu using the current WVP process are briefly discussed. 

The first RBMK-type reactor started up at Obninsk in 1954—two years before Calder Hall. It is still operating. There are plans for 70000 MW of new nuclear plant to be commissioned between 1984 and 1994 but how that target will be affected by the decision to build no more RBMK reactors is not clear. 

Calder Hall. Site of the first British Magnox reactor. 

The provision of a reactor atmosphere, disassociated from the fuel element coolant, is a design feature that is peculiar to most graphite moderated tube type reactor. Exceptions to this rule are the British production (Windscale) and power (Calder Hall et. al. ) reactors that use air and CO2 respectively primarily for a fuel element coolant and secondarily as a moderator atmosphere. 

---