Calder Hall reactor

…Kingdom’s first nuclear power station, Calder Hall (opened 1956; decommissioned 2003), was 10 miles (16 km) south of Whitehaven. The adjacent Windscale nuclear power research station was shut down in 1981 and became a test case for dismantling a nuclear reactor. Area 283 square miles (732 square km). Pop. (2001)…

…successor to reactors of the Calder Hall class, which combined plutonium production and power generation. Calder Hall, the first nuclear station to feed an appreciable amount of power into a civilian network opened in 1956. The Calder Hall reactor design was fueled with slugs of natural uranium metal canned in…

…from Windscale, a new reactor, Calder Hall A, made history in 1956 by producing the world’s first electric power generation on a commercial scale (while also producing plutonium for weapons). The Calder Hall reactors were cooled by compressed carbon dioxide gas and used a fuel of natural uranium metal sheathed…