UK demolishes nuclear station towers

LONDON, Sept 29, 2007 -- Xinhua

The four cooling towers at Calder Hall in Cumbria, northern England, the world's first full-scale nuclear power station, were demolished Saturday, the Sky News reported.

Explosives were used to bring down the 88 meter-high towers, which were officially opened by the Queen on Oct. 17, 1956.

Their dismantling came over four years after electricity generation ceased. Actually the station stopped generating electricity in March 2003. Permission to decommission was obtained in June 2005 after a public consultation.

The operation is the first step to decommission the 167,000 square meter Calder Hall site, which comprises 62 buildings. Plans to create a 128 million-pound hi-tech museum at the site were scrapped earlier this week.

During their operation, the four towers supplied cooled water as it returned to the turbine hall within a closed energy system, a key part of the production of power.

It will take 12 weeks to remove the rubble after the explosions had taken place, with steel from the site being recycled where possible.

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