sailorman
Well-known member
How about a new airport too ( Foulness perhaps ), this will assist all those Chinese Nuke Executives cut down travel times from LHR & X rail
Developments at Bradwell
- Thread starter MoodySabre
- Start date
PeterWright
Well-known member
It will be many years before there wi;; be any certainty about building either Bradwell B or Sizewell C as both hese projects will have a lengthy licensing ritual to go through before any potential investor actually commits the funds. If you want evidence, just look at the case of Hinkley Point C in Somerset which, at the outset, was to be funded by EdF Energy and Centrica (owners of British Gas) - this was at a similar stage 15 years ago and it was only last week that they confessed to a few years more slippage in commissioning date, which surprised noone as few orders have been placed and serious on site work has yet to start.
I would be very happy to see these projects get going, not least for the reasons made clear in the srticle Sixpence linked to, but I don't see the current National approach of ine off designs having much hope of economic success. The considrable costs of developing a design and safety case for a modern nuclear plant, then maintaining them through the operating life, need to be spread across several plants - Sizewell B was conceived as the first of four plants, but the follow-ons were cancelled in the fallout of the Cecil Parkinson privatisation mess. The only way I can see to make a one off nuclear plant pay its way is to pay as much for its output as we are currently payong for wind power and give it the same guaranteed access to the grid.
If, and when, the projects are firmed up, there is no fear that what remains of the barrier wall off Bradwell will feature as part if Bradwell B = the cooling water needs of the 5 tmes bigger (power, not physical size) plant will have to be drawn from and returned to deeper water, further down the estuary. Anyway, the much corroded state of the steel piling from which the wall is built is unlikely to survive many more years - it was built in 1958 and was already in a dire state by 1996, when I became responsible for Bradwell Power Station.
I agree that the campus proposal at Leiston appears not well thought though, for all previous nuclear projects, including Sizewell B, we have built a temporary hostel immediaely adjacent to the site, which gets removed once the plant is commissioned. Sizewell B took about 8 years to build and commission, including the preliminary site works such as building the site hostel, so temporary buildings are quite sufficient for the purpose.
Apart from reinforcing our ageing and much depleted electricity generation capacity, these projects would provide thousnds of jobs during construction and around 500 permanent jobs per site for a 40 - 50 year operating life.
But don't hold your breath.....
Peter
I would be very happy to see these projects get going, not least for the reasons made clear in the srticle Sixpence linked to, but I don't see the current National approach of ine off designs having much hope of economic success. The considrable costs of developing a design and safety case for a modern nuclear plant, then maintaining them through the operating life, need to be spread across several plants - Sizewell B was conceived as the first of four plants, but the follow-ons were cancelled in the fallout of the Cecil Parkinson privatisation mess. The only way I can see to make a one off nuclear plant pay its way is to pay as much for its output as we are currently payong for wind power and give it the same guaranteed access to the grid.
If, and when, the projects are firmed up, there is no fear that what remains of the barrier wall off Bradwell will feature as part if Bradwell B = the cooling water needs of the 5 tmes bigger (power, not physical size) plant will have to be drawn from and returned to deeper water, further down the estuary. Anyway, the much corroded state of the steel piling from which the wall is built is unlikely to survive many more years - it was built in 1958 and was already in a dire state by 1996, when I became responsible for Bradwell Power Station.
I agree that the campus proposal at Leiston appears not well thought though, for all previous nuclear projects, including Sizewell B, we have built a temporary hostel immediaely adjacent to the site, which gets removed once the plant is commissioned. Sizewell B took about 8 years to build and commission, including the preliminary site works such as building the site hostel, so temporary buildings are quite sufficient for the purpose.
Apart from reinforcing our ageing and much depleted electricity generation capacity, these projects would provide thousnds of jobs during construction and around 500 permanent jobs per site for a 40 - 50 year operating life.
But don't hold your breath.....
Peter
FullCircle
Well-known member
Thanks Peterwright. I also hope that the project proceeds. How was the current Bradwell built? I see no evidence of any 'village' for the workers. I think it would be better to have hostel accommodation at nominal rents, rather than a park full of caravans, but they would need to be self contained with al modern facilities.
I just wish they had got this started before those pesky wind farms had blighted the landscape.
I just wish they had got this started before those pesky wind farms had blighted the landscape.
PeterWright
Well-known member
In those days the accomodation for the construction workforce was referred to as the Site Camp, made up of single story wooden huts, and was sited on the airfield. The Councol houses in Tillingham nd Sothminster were built with Power Station funding to provide housing for the permanent workforce.
As I guess most know, the slipway at Bradwell Creek was built to bring ashore the 12 boiler shells, which were launched at their build works on the Tees and towed up the coast. Fortunately, it was left behind for others to use. The equivalent beach landing facility at Sizewell B was completely dismantled towards the end of the build and the beach carefully resown with native species which had been harvested there beforehand and preserved at the University of East Anglia. However, the deep wale steel piles from this were sold off second hand and many ended up in Suffolk Yacht Harbour.
Sorry, I'm a mine of useless information.
Peter
As I guess most know, the slipway at Bradwell Creek was built to bring ashore the 12 boiler shells, which were launched at their build works on the Tees and towed up the coast. Fortunately, it was left behind for others to use. The equivalent beach landing facility at Sizewell B was completely dismantled towards the end of the build and the beach carefully resown with native species which had been harvested there beforehand and preserved at the University of East Anglia. However, the deep wale steel piles from this were sold off second hand and many ended up in Suffolk Yacht Harbour.
Sorry, I'm a mine of useless information.
Peter
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Sixpence
Active member
PeterWright; said:
Not to some of us Peter, all I can find recently about this is what that BAANG organisation put out to the press and I'd much rather hear what those with real info and knowledge can tell about it. As for this being a lounge type thread, afraid I don't think so for one, this is an issue which the East coast may well have to deal with more and more due to its shallow nature which allows easier turbine installation offshore. Looking at an up to date chart covering from Essex and Suffolk it looks more and more like minefields left over from the last punch up we had. I do appreciate that local house prices on the coast could lose their value though, but surely only to those planning to sell up, but it's an issue which affects lots of East coast settlements, you only need to look a little further North to see how entire villages are vanishing, which doesn't help the price
DavidofMersea
Well-known member
DavidofMersea
Well-known member
BANNG are not to be taken seriously. Although Andy Blowers, BANNG's chairman, is a great friend of mine, I cannot believe the stuff BANNG are putting out about Bradwell. There is a half page spread in the local paper this week where BANNG are complaining about the dangerous discharge from the power station, yet Andy and his wife swim in the Blackwater. If they really believed the anti power station propaganda they are putting out, they would not do that. BANNG are just enjoying whipping up a bit of hysteria
Colvic Watson
Well-known member
Crikey the railway line extension was being talked about as a dead duck when I moved there in '89; its main function was to have been the easy transport of nuclear fuel. As it is it goes by road first.
DavidofMersea
Well-known member
The railway line was proposed before the war. The plan was for a line to come from Colchester to Mersea, there would be a ferry to Bradwell where people would get on another train to Burnham and then get a ferry across the Crouch, and then onto another train to Southend
Tam Lin
Well-known member
First proposed in Victorian times I think.
PeterWright
Well-known member
A bit more useless info.
There has never been any intention on the part of the successive owners of Bradwell Power Station or the railways, from the CEGB and British Rail onwards, to extend the railway into the Bradwell Power Station site, even though that seems common sense to many and is common practice in many other countries. In the case of Dungeness A, the railway line was actually shortened back from the site during construction and an offsite railhead formed so a lorry could carry the fuel flasks about 1,5 miles before transferring to a rail wagon. The course of the old line now forms the vehicle access road to both Dungeness Power Stations.
However, had it not been for the nuclear plants at Bradwell, Dungeness and Sizewell, you can be sure that the branch lines to the railheads used for the fuel from these locations would have fallen to Dr Beeching's axe in the 60's. The Crouch Valley line is the only one of these where a passenger service to the railhead survives and I suspect we can thank South Woodham Ferrers for its electrification. The nearly dead diesel multiple units made redundant by that were foisted on the poor Suffolk users of the Ipswich - Lowestoft branch, serving onto the late 1990's (I lived in Melton at the time).
If you're really interested in the history of the Crouch Valley line, pay a visit to John Jolly's Mangapps Railway Museum on the outskirts of Burnham (a nice walk if your visiting by boat) :
http://www.mangapps.co.uk/
In there you will find the original drawings for the line, extending all the way to Bradwell-Juxta-Mare, which it was hoped could be developed as a seaside resort. I don't believe there has been any serious intention to extend it beyond Southminster since it was built - all well before Enrico Fermi demonstrated the practicability of controlled and sustained nuclear fission in a squash court in Chicago.
Peter.
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FullCircle
Well-known member
Have you got a Magnox ingnition key for your boat engine Peter?
PeterWright
Well-known member
Have you got a Magnox ingnition key for your boat engine Peter?
I'm afraid not but, since you ask, I do have a Rolls Royce key ring for my Dagenham Dustbin, kindly supplied by Rolls Royce Nuclear Engineering Services. Perhaps I should have declared it as an unsolicited gift.
Peter
ex-Gladys
Well-known member
The other point is that most of the Crouch line is single track, and does not have capacity for much of an uplift in the number of trains....
PeterWright
Well-known member
While that's true, it would not prohibit using the line for either shipping spent fuel or delivering construction materials. While Bradwell and Sizewell A needed to ship around 1 flask of fuel per week through their operating lifetimes and just over 2 flasks per week for a year or so when defuelling, Sizewll B has yet to ship any spent fuel off site. It extracts so much energy from its fuel that there is only enough spent fuel to fill about 2 flasks per year.
For construction of Sizewell B, all cement, ash and re bar was delivered to Leiston railhead by rail and all ballast was dredged at sea, pumped ashore for washing and screening on site. These measures were to reduce the impact of construction traffic, despite the fact that road delivery would have been less costly. The larget components (reactor pressure vessel, steam generators, pressuriser were delivered by sea to the beach landing facility.
None of this interfered with the passenger service on the largely single track Lowestoft line, although failure of the ex Crouch Valley line diesels fequently did.
Peter
FullCircle
Well-known member
As a point of pathetic interest, I used to manufacture Nuclear Fuel flask carrying wagons at the rate of 2 a year. They weighed 102 tons each, and were hand made by the Jig & Tool gang at Ashford works in our spare time. My last was 1981.....
DavidofMersea
Well-known member
That is an unusual hobby !!!!!
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FullCircle
Well-known member
Habebty
Well-known member
FullCircle
Well-known member
Thanks Pete, that was a real trip down memory lane...... I will post to the Ashford remembered Facebook page
Here is the shop next to the Nuclear build. I spent many a long hour there.
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