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Springfields

Nuclear site in Lancashire, England

Summary

Nuclear site in Lancashire, England

Field	Value
name	Springfields
image	Westinghouse Factory (BNF) on Deepdale Lane (geograph 6064540).jpg
caption	View from Deepdale Lane
built	1940 (as munitions factory); 1946 (as nuclear fuels facility)
location	Salwick, Lancashire, England
location_map	Lancashire
coordinates
industry	Nuclear fuel
products	oxide fuels; uranium hexafluoride
employees	800
address	Springfields Fuels Limited, Westinghouse, Springfields, Salwick, Preston PR4 0XJ

Springfields is a nuclear fuel production installation in Salwick, near Preston in Lancashire, England (). The site is currently operated by Springfields Fuels Limited, under the management of Westinghouse Electric UK Limited, on a 150-year lease from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. Since its conversion from a munitions factory in 1946, it has previously been operated and managed by a number of different organisations including the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and British Nuclear Fuels. Fuel products are produced for the UK's nuclear power stations and for international customers.

Activities on the site

The site has been making nuclear fuels since the mid-1940s. The site is notable for being the first nuclear plant in the world to produce Magnox fuel for a commercial power station (Calder Hall).

The four main activities carried out on the site are:

Production of oxide fuels for advanced gas-cooled and light water reactors, as well as intermediate fuel products (uranium dioxide powders, granules, and pellets)
Production of uranium hexafluoride, or "hex"
Processing of fuel-cycle residues
Decommissioning and demolition of redundant plants and buildings

At its peak the site employed 4000 people, but reduced demand and increased automation saw this fall to about 800 by 2020.

In December 2022 Westinghouse received a £13 million grant from the UK government to explore the development of Uranium Conversion Services at the site.

Protests

Protests have been held at the site against the production of nuclear waste. In the 1980s there were also protests against apartheid, due to the use of uranium imported from Namibia.

Future of the plant

Decommissioning activities have so far resulted in 87 buildings on the site having been fully demolished. A Clean Energy Technology Park (CETP) has been set up to encourage new companies to operate on the site.

References

"Legal".
Chapman, Ben. (30 March 2017). "Westinghouse bankruptcy: Is the future of nuclear power in the UK in doubt?". The Independent.
"Westinghouse". Westinghouse website on nuclear sites.
(7 May 2020). "Springfields: what next?". Nuclear Engineering International.
(2014). "Nuclear Fuel Manufacture at Springfields". Wesinghouse.
"Westinghouse Receives UK Government Grant to Explore Uranium Conversion Services".
"Nuclear Decommissioning Agency". Decommissioning at Springfields site.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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