Nuclear sub - few know that London has (had?) 2 nuclear reactors, both experimental but one was owned by the Royal Naval College - I assume decommissioned now as the premises bought by a univ.
welcome!
RE: Introductions - Scholaris
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Introductions - Scholaris
I would imagine it would have remained operational. It costs a pretty penny to decommission a nuclear reactor. And if it's used for testing purposes those puppies can run indefinitely with "affordable" upkeep. Thanks for the welcome!
Yes, which is why the reactor was still there. Long story but I had the cheek to investigate buying the place - not as a palatial home but for a museum of mathematics - there was also a lot of money in the UK at the time for new cultural centres. Anyway, I was only 2 years behind the curve (lmao) and the local university had already agreed to buy the Naval College. However... I knew it had a reactor and it probably cost as much to decommission as the premises.
https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/32/027/32027391.pdf
Was kinda funny that the people I spoke to thought this was some deep secret. My research at the time was in the history of science, which is full of secret research - some of which still hasn't gone public! :-)
Decommissioning can get quite expensive depending on the future use of the land. The technology exists to completely restore the land.
One area I worked at was a toxic waste dump back in the 50s and 60s. The US declared that area as a hazardous site back then and completely restored the area. It's a vast land of trees now. You'd NEVER know it was so polluted.
Decommissioning, though, takes a long time. For nuclear power plants, decommissioning will take decades and billions (USD) to restore to its original site.
Oh yeah, there's definitely a secret stigma to it all as well. Accessing the information isn't common at all even though a lot of it is public. However, like anything else in life, you almost have to be working in the industry to understand the information available.