World's oldest nuclear power plant to close in UK

21 March 2003

The world's oldest industrial scale nuclear power station, Calder Hall in northwest England, is to shut down because of weak UK power prices. British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) said in a statement that the 196 megawatt plant, small by the standards of more modern nuclear reactors, would stop generating on March 31.

Calder Hall was opened in 1956 at BNFL's Sellafield nuclear site. It is one of seven plants built in Britain using the costly Magnox technology, abandoned everywhere else in the world already but still producing about five percent of Britain's electricity.

"The depressed price for electricity coupled with the relatively high overheads of smaller stations such as Calder Hall makes its continued operation uneconomic," said BNFL in a statement.

Calder Hall was originally scheduled for closure in 2006, along with two larger stations, but BNFL said last year it expected to bring forward the closure. A 40 percent slide in UK power prices sice 1998 as market liberalisation exposed excess capacity has left high-cost nuclear power in deep trouble. Last year the Government was forced to provide financial support to its main nuclear producer and its biggest single electricity generating company, British Energy Plc (BGY.L), which was privatised in 1996. The firm may still face insolvency.

The nuclear industry's financial troubles have emboldened anti-nuclear groups calling for the early closure of all the nation's nuclear power stations, which account for about 25 percent of its power demand, and an end to loss-making BNFL's nuclear fuel reprocessing activities. In recent energy legislation the Government avoided a decision on whether to start building new nuclear reactors.

None has been built for 14 years, and most are due to close over the next two decades.

Reuters News Service.