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!
RE: Introductions - Scholaris
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Introductions - Scholaris
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.