The £3m crane, supplied by Wellman Booth, is an integral part of the new waste retrieval facility (WRF) that is being built alongside the pile fuel cladding silo (PFCS). It will be used to lift 3m3 legacy nuclear waste packages onto road transporters.
The PFCS was built in 1951 to store radioactive fuel cladding from the military Windscale Piles and later from Calder Hall and Chapelcross reactors. It is effectively a giant concrete safe that has reached the end of its life. Its thick concrete walls will now be broken open and the radioactive waste removed.
The WRF is made up of a giant concrete superstructure, into which bespoke waste retrieval modules will be slotted and these will dock onto the side of the PFCS to retrieve the waste through specially-designed silo doors.
The new semi-goliath crane arrived on site in 12 lorry loads and was assembled on site by a 350-tonne telescopic mobile crane on hire from Ainscough. The crane had previously been assembled and load-tested in Gateshead.
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