Go behind the scenes of Heysham 2 nuclear power station
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00:00Hello, I'm engineer and TV presenter Rob Bell, and I'm very excited to be taking you on a
00:08tour of a nuclear power station.
00:11This is a real first for me because I've been given access to all areas to Hesham 2 nuclear
00:17power station here in sunny Lancashire, one of only five operational nuclear plants in
00:23the UK.
00:34This incredible facility produces over 1200 megawatts of electricity, or to put that in
00:40more simple terms, enough to power 2 million homes, and does this 24 hours a day, 7 days
00:47a week, no matter the weather.
00:51It's doing it right now, and most impressive of all, it's doing it without releasing any
00:57carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
01:00So let's put this access all areas to good use, let's explore.
01:06Hesham 2 started generating in 1988, it took 8 years to build, and was the second nuclear
01:13power station on the site, with Hesham 1 opening 5 years earlier.
01:19Both stations use Advanced Gas Cooled Reactors, or AGRs, which were the second generation
01:25of their type to be built in the UK.
01:28Despite being one of the youngest AGRs in the fleet, Hesham 2 is on course to be the
01:33nation's most productive.
01:36In its 36 years of operation, it's already generated over 300 terawatt hours.
01:42That's enough electricity to power every home in Lancashire for 147 years.
01:54Now I should make it very clear that you cannot just walk into one of these places.
01:59The crew and I have had to go through a lot of security checks to get on site.
02:04That said, EDF do offer guided tours, so if you fancy taking a closer look at a nuclear
02:10power station, go to the EDF website, find your nearest nuclear power plant, and book
02:15yourself onto a tour.
02:18Let's get right into it then, how do you generate electricity using nuclear?
02:23First up, a very basic physics lesson.
02:27Most power stations work by converting heat energy into kinetic energy, or motion into
02:33electrical energy.
02:35With coal, gas, and nuclear power stations, heat is used to turn water into steam at high
02:43pressure.
02:44That steam is then passed through something called a turbine, which makes it spin, a bit
02:48like a toy windmill when you blow on it.
02:52Connected to the turbine is a generator, and when a generator spins, you get electricity
02:57out the end.
02:59The principal difference between coal, gas, and nuclear power stations is the fuel used
03:05to generate that heat at the very beginning of the process.
03:10Hesham 2 is actually quite compact, about 0.1 of a square mile, which makes the amount
03:16of power it produces even more impressive.
03:20The site is made up of three main facilities, the reactor building, which houses the two
03:26nuclear reactors used to create heat, the turbine hall, where steam is used to turn
03:32the generators, and the pump house, which brings in seawater to cool that steam back
03:38into water.
03:41So there's a lot to explore.
03:43Let's start at the reactor building.
04:05Before anyone goes inside the reactor hall, they have to collect one of these.
04:09It's called a decimeter.
04:14Reactors like the one here use a process called nuclear fission to generate that heat that
04:19we're after, but we'll come back to that a little bit later on.
04:23In addition to heat, nuclear fission also creates radiation, which if not managed correctly
04:28can be dangerous.
04:30That's why we wear a decimeter like this, to measure any radiation we might come in
04:34contact with.
04:38There we go.
04:39As you can see here, it's currently reading zero, which is good.
04:42So we'll head in and keep an eye on this as we go around.
04:51As well as the reactors themselves, this place is also home to the fueling machine, the spent
04:57fuel ponds, and the boilers, all key parts of a nuclear power plant.
05:02To get the best view, I'm heading up, 32 metres up to be precise.
05:09Going up.
05:10All right.
05:11Here we go then, the reactor hall.
05:12Oh yes.
05:13Oh, look at that.
05:14Well, it's enormous, right?
05:39This is a cathedral of energy.
05:44Everything in here is just vast.
05:47It's at scale.
05:49I am suitably impressed.
05:51I mean, words fail me really.
05:53Suffice to say, this place is massive.
06:00And if you look at either end of this vast hall, you'll see the tops of both nuclear
06:06reactors.
06:09Another huge piece of kit in this vast space is this, the fueling machine.
06:15And I'm meeting Richard to tell me a bit more about it.
06:17How are you going, Richard?
06:18Hi, Rob.
06:19Good to see you.
06:20Yeah, likewise.
06:21You having a good day?
06:22I'm like a kid in a sweet shot.
06:23Excellent.
06:24Excellent.
06:25So tell me, the fueling machine, where does that sit within the operations generally of
06:29the nuclear power plant?
06:30Yeah, so the fueling machine enables us to put new fuel into the reactor and take the
06:36old fuel, the spent fuel, out.
06:39The fuel assemblies that contain the uranium are 10 metres high, so the fueling machine
06:45needs to be that tall.
06:47It's basically a big pressurised crane.
06:49The same height above is also below.
06:52The facilities on Centre Block now, they go down the same distance.
06:57I'm glad you reminded me that, because I've just come up in the lift 32 metres, but I'd
07:03had temporarily forgotten that, because it just feels like I'm on ground level here.
07:07I guess we're about halfway up this building, are we then?
07:11Yeah, I think the roof's at 64 metres, we're at 32.
07:15The basement's another 12 metres below ground, so we've got lots of facilities that you can't
07:19see where we build and dispose of fuel.
07:23So build the new fuel and dispose of the spent fuel is all beneath our feet in this area.
07:28So I can see that the crane itself down the middle, it's built and installed within this
07:33gantry here, and I can see the rails go the whole length of the hall.
07:40Does that then move, shift from one side to the other?
07:42Yeah, it can get all the way on to R8 over here, Reactor 8, and all the way on to Reactor
07:467, the other side of the fueling machine as you see it now.
07:49And that's what it needs to do to draw out the old and put in the new?
07:53That's correct, yeah.
07:55Is it operational at the moment?
07:56Is the fueling machine doing anything now?
07:58Yeah, at the moment we're building and disposing, so when we're not refuelling the reactors,
08:02the fueling machine builds new fuel and disposes of old fuel.
08:06So the spent fuel that's come out, we put into a facility on the centre block to allow
08:10it to cool down sufficiently before we take it to the irradiated fuel disposal facility
08:15where we break it down into its component parts and send the fuel elements to the ponds,
08:20which you'll see later.
08:21Okay, so it all breaks down, that 10 metres then, it all breaks down into smaller components?
08:26That's right.
08:27We reuse some of them and the fuel elements themselves go off-site via the pond.
08:31Okay, okay.
08:32And we're talking about the reactors, one over the far side of the hall and the other
08:36one just here, is it?
08:37The other one is just here, yeah.
08:38Literally, we can go and have a look at it now if you want.
08:40That is the top of the reactor.
08:41Yeah?
08:42I'm all right to come in a bit closer?
08:43Yeah, absolutely.
08:44That's the pile cap.
08:45When we bring the fueling machine over…
08:46The pile cap is that black area down the bottom?
08:49Yeah, the black area is the pile cap.
08:51This thing in front of us is the shield that the fueling machine connects to and enables
08:55us to make a gas-tight seal onto the top of the standpipe that contains the old and new
09:01fuel.
09:02Okay.
09:03So we take the blocks up, the black area, we'll remove floor and enable us to make
09:07a gas-tight connection via the shield, via the machine, onto the reactor.
09:12This comes over, out with the old, in with the new.
09:15That's right.
09:16It's all so impressive, Richard.
09:18The operations here is mind-blowing.
09:20And I have to say, I've never stood this close to a nuclear reactor before.
09:23It feels quite special, I have to say.
09:25Well, you can get even closer.
09:27You can go down on top of the reactor, you can go down those stairs there onto the pile
09:30cap.
09:31I'm all right to go and stand that close?
09:32Absolutely, yeah.
09:33Are you sure?
09:34Yeah, yeah.
09:35I'm trusting you on this, really.
09:36Just over there.
09:37I will do it.
09:38Great.
09:39Nice to meet you.
09:40Thanks very much.
09:41See you later.
09:42Here we go.
09:43I mean, Richard seems to know exactly what he's talking about, and there's no way I'm
09:49going to pass up his offer, so here we go.
09:55I'm going to step out onto a nuclear reactor.
09:59I don't feel any different, but wow.
10:04This is very special.
10:06I've certainly never done this before.
10:11So beneath my feet right now, nuclear fission is happening.
10:16Temperatures of over 600 degrees.
10:22That energy, because it's harnessed by what happens in the nuclear plant, is then converted
10:27into electricity that can power a million homes, and the people in those million homes
10:35can go and switch on a light switch, watch TV, keep drinks cold in the fridge, or however
10:41they use electricity at home.
10:43The fact they can do all that stems from what is happening beneath my feet right now.
10:48Yeah, that feels special.
10:51I should just check the dosimeter, actually, because this is the closest I will get to
10:56nuclear fission, and that is still clearly reading zero.
11:03Wow, yeah.
11:08This is brilliant.
11:09I obviously can't show you what nuclear fission looks like, so instead, here's a quick explainer.
11:18The fuel used in this plant comes in the form of these uranium pellets, and there are over
11:2512 million of these across the two reactors at Hesham 2, and they get stacked in these
11:32metal tubes and assembled like this into what's called a fuel element.
11:40Nuclear fission is a proven way to make power, and it happens when neutrons are fired at
11:45the uranium atoms in those pellets.
11:48That causes them to split and release more neutrons.
11:52Those neutrons hit other atoms, causing more splits, and so on and so on.
11:56This is called a chain reaction.
11:59Each time an atom is split, a large amount of energy is also released and creates heat.
12:06The amount of potential energy contained in this small pellet is incredible.
12:12Just one of these holds about the same amount of energy as a ton of coal, and that is one
12:17of the great things about nuclear energy.
12:21Using gas or coal to create heat releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but creating
12:27heat by splitting the atom, there's no carbon dioxide.
12:32In fact, the carbon avoided here at Hesham, compared to a gas-fired power station, is
12:38like taking all of the UK's cars off the road for more than a year and a half.
12:46So now we know how fission works, we need to understand how that's made into electricity.
12:52The nuclear fission process inside the reactor creates heat.
12:56A lot of heat, in fact.
12:58And this is used to turn water into steam.
13:02This happens in the 12 boilers surrounding the core.
13:06The steam is then sent through huge pipes to the turbine hall, and that is the next
13:11stop on our tour.
13:17Now before I leave the reactor building, I need to pass through one of these radiation detectors.
13:21Now these machines are here to make sure I haven't picked up any radiation on my overalls
13:26or my gloves or my boots or anything.
13:28So scan myself in.
13:31Step inside.
13:32There we go.
13:33You have to get quite intimate with this machine.
13:41The countdown's ominous.
13:42There we go.
13:44There we go.
13:45Follow instructions.
13:48Hands go up there.
13:59We have liftoff.
14:00I've passed the test.
14:04And finally, before I leave the building, I need to return my dosimeter.
14:10Now I've been inside for a good few hours.
14:13And don't forget, I've been standing on top of a nuclear reactor.
14:18But as expected, my dosimeter is reading zero.
14:23So that's all good.
14:24I've got the green light and we can carry on with the tour.
14:37After the heat from the reactors has turned water into steam,
14:41that steam is passed at high pressure through large pipes into the turbine hall.
14:47Now it is very noisy in there.
14:49You can already hear it.
14:50And you won't be able to hear what I'm saying.
14:52But there's no way I'm not going to show you this part of the plant.
14:57This is where you can really feel the raw power of Operation Tahitian 2.
15:04This is where the high-precision machinery comes alive.
15:12This is another vast building with an extensive network of pipes and valves.
15:19The steam from the boilers enters here and is sent to these enormous turbines.
15:26The steam is delivered to the turbines at extremely high pressure.
15:30And when pushed through the blades, the steam is sent to the boiler.
15:35The steam is delivered to the turbines at extremely high pressure.
15:39And when pushed through the blades, the turbine spins at 60 revolutions per second,
15:44or 3,000 revolutions every minute.
15:48The spinning turbine powers a generator.
15:51The generator is made up of a ring of large magnets
15:55and another ring made of lots of tightly wound metal wire.
15:59When the generator turns, the magnets spin around
16:03and the movement of the magnets past the coiled-up wire
16:06makes electricity start to flow through the wires.
16:09This electricity then makes its way to the pylons outside and off into your home.
16:16The big advantage is that this process doesn't produce any carbon emissions.
16:20Nothing goes into the atmosphere.
16:34Brilliant.
16:36That's better.
16:38When you picture nuclear power stations,
16:40a lot of people might expect to see something like in the Simpsons.
16:44Unlike the nuclear power plant in Springfield, there are no cooling towers here.
16:50In fact, in the UK, it's our coal and gas-fired power stations that have cooling towers.
16:56That's not to say that with nuclear energy,
16:59you don't still need a means of cooling down that hot steam into water
17:03so it can be recirculated and used again.
17:06You definitely do need that.
17:09You might also have noticed here at Heasham,
17:12as with all of the nuclear power stations in the UK,
17:15we're next to the sea.
17:17That's because the sea is a great source of cold water,
17:21brilliant for cooling down steam.
17:23Understandably, that may cause concern for some people
17:26and a fear that water from the reactors ends up out at sea.
17:31So let's now head down to the pump house
17:33so we can understand actually how seawater is used on site.
17:47The water that's heated and turned into steam is in what's called a closed loop.
17:52It's a bit like a central heating system in your home.
17:55It's the same water that goes through the reactors and the boilers and the turbines
18:00and it's recirculated, going round and round again.
18:03I'm on my way to see the facilities that draws in the cold seawater
18:08into a completely separate system.
18:17This is the pump house.
18:19And I can tell you because I can smell it, that is definitely seawater.
18:23To find out more about what happens here, I'm meeting Victoria,
18:26who's an environmental engineer at Heathshim.
18:28Hi Rob.
18:29Nice to meet you Victoria.
18:30So first of all I want to ask you, does any of this seawater end up in the reactor?
18:36No, so this seawater is completely separate from the water that's used in the boilers around the reactor.
18:42The water that's used in the boilers around the reactor needs to be completely pure
18:45and free of any contaminants like salt.
18:47That makes a lot of sense to me.
18:49So why use seawater in the first place?
18:52So this seawater runs in pipework alongside the boiler steam
18:56to cool the boiler steam back into water.
18:59Are there any measures in place to limit any environmental impact of using seawater?
19:05Yes, so all of this seawater is then returned back to the sea
19:09and we have an environmental permit that covers this process.
19:12This permit covers things like the volume, temperature and the chemistry
19:17of the water returning back to sea.
19:19We then also have screens in place to reduce any wildlife coming into the seawater system
19:26and also to stop any marine materials like seaweed from entering the seawater system.
19:31And it does make a lot of sense to me that with this massive source of cold water there,
19:37we're next to the sea, we use seawater and it works right?
19:42Yes, exactly.
19:43Brilliant.
19:44Victoria, thank you so much.
19:45Listen, I'm going to let you get on as long as you need.
19:47Perfect, thank you Rob.
19:48Enjoy.
19:52Through this tour we've broken down operations here into four distinct areas.
19:57Creating heat, spinning turbines, generating electricity and cooling steam back down into water.
20:05So the question remains, how is all of this controlled and who's keeping an eye on it?
20:18If the reactors are the heart of this power station, then this, the central control room or CTR, is the brain.
20:36Now we've had to request very special permission for me to even be in here
20:40and even so, I can be on this side of the barrier, I'm not allowed to be over on that side of the barrier.
20:48And the team here needs to remain incredibly focused at all times, which is why I'm keeping my voice down low.
20:54But this is it, this is where everything is controlled from.
20:59It's where the reactors can be started up or shut down.
21:03It's where the temperatures inside the reactors are regulated.
21:06It's where any alerts will be signalled so that they can be swiftly attended to.
21:12There's a team of three people working in here now and there's been a team of at least three people working in here
21:2024 hours a day, seven days a week, since this plant started generating in 1988.
21:28And there's this real sense of calm in here as well.
21:31As you'd expect, these are the conditions they need to stay focused.
21:34It's very cool in here.
21:36But at the same time, there's this incredible sense of gravity of what happens.
21:43I don't want to overstay my welcome, so I'm going to head off and leave the Team B.
21:48But I'm so pleased we could bring you in here so you can see all this.
21:51It's such a privilege.
22:05Team B
22:12We've seen how the plant uses nuclear fuel to generate electricity.
22:16But this tour wouldn't be complete without addressing something that can cause concern for people.
22:21Waste.
22:22Remember those little pellets we were talking about earlier?
22:25They stay inside the reactors for around seven years.
22:29So the question is, what happens to them when they're spent?
22:35Team B
22:50Even within the general restrictions of the entire site,
22:53the area where the waste is handled, very few people get to see.
22:58To me, this tour is just layer upon layer of curiosity being satisfied.
23:03It's Dan, is it?
23:04That's right, yeah.
23:05Good to meet you.
23:06You too.
23:07Dan, where are we here? What's this room?
23:09So we're currently in the IFD cell, the Irradiated Fuel Disposal cell.
23:14And this is where we remotely dismantle the fuel stringer.
23:17And why is that done remotely?
23:19To keep everyone safe from the radiation.
23:21Okay, yeah.
23:22And from this then, where does that fuel end up?
23:26So from here, safely deposited in the cooling ponds.
23:30That is the next step on my tour.
23:32Dan, I'm going to leave you to your work here.
23:35Thanks for showing me around.
23:36Thank you very much.
23:37It's it.
23:38Cheers.
24:03All right, here we are then.
24:06This is the spent fuel pond here at Hesham 2.
24:12I wasn't quite sure what to expect,
24:14but there's certainly a very different vibe in here to the rest of the plant.
24:20It's actually quite calming.
24:22Those dismantled fuel elements are then brought in here
24:25and lowered down into these special skips that you can see on the bottom of the pool.
24:29There's rectangular skips.
24:31And as you can see inside that one, there are some spent fuel elements inside.
24:36And those skips are maintained and submerged beneath the water
24:40because the water acts as an additional barrier to any radiation.
24:44In fact, it's a good time to check my dosimeter.
24:47And yeah, very happily, I can quite clearly see that's still reading zero.
24:54That's pleasing.
25:02After about 90 days, these skips can be loaded into what's called a flask
25:07to be shipped off site.
25:09So a crane will come, will lift one of these skips
25:13and carefully lower it down into one of these flasks
25:16when the top is then put on and securely bolted down.
25:19That's it. That's ready to be shipped off site then.
25:22Now, when I say flask, you might think of the thing you keep your tea warm in
25:26on a hike or picnic or something.
25:29Let me reassure you, these flasks are very different
25:32and they've been engineered to be incredibly robust.
25:37They're made of single forged steel, weigh 53 tonnes
25:43and have walls that are at least 39 centimetres thick.
25:47They're rigorously tested to make sure they can withstand any kind of trauma.
25:53Back in the 80s, to prove how safe they are,
25:57a test was carried out with a train crashing into one at 100 miles per hour.
26:03Even with that impact, it remained sealed
26:07and only suffered some superficial marks.
26:10And that very flask is on display here at Heysham almost 40 years later.
26:21Instead of being crashed into, this flask has been thoroughly cleaned and checked,
26:26ready to be loaded onto a train for its journey up the coast to Sellafield in Cumbria.
26:39For the last 20 years, Sizeworld B nuclear station in Suffolk
26:44has used reprocessed AGR fuel to power its reactors
26:49and there's enough in stock to keep it fuelled
26:53throughout the rest of the time that it will be generating.
26:58The rest will be thoroughly taken apart to reduce volume
27:02and kept in storage until a permanent underground storage facility is built
27:07and other nations are already implementing this solution.
27:14Nuclear waste is radioactive, but there isn't actually that much of it.
27:20After 75 years of research and electricity generation,
27:24there's only about a dishwasher tablet's worth of high-level waste for each person in the UK.
27:30And there are thorough measures and procedures in place
27:33to make sure that every ounce of that waste is safely accounted for and managed at all times.
27:41And new designs of nuclear power station have been created
27:45to produce even less spent fuel than this one.
27:48At newer stations like Sizeworld B,
27:50the spent fuel can be stored in canisters on site rather than going to Sellafield.
27:56And the UK government plans to build a geological disposal facility
28:01to store these canisters safely underground.
28:10Well, that's it.
28:12I really hope you've enjoyed exploring the inner workings
28:15of this nuclear power station as much as I have.
28:18As an engineer, I feel that nuclear needs to be part of the UK's solution
28:24towards emissions reductions and net zero targets,
28:27as well as helping us to make sure we're in charge of our own destiny
28:32when it comes to the electricity that we need.
28:35This tour has also reaffirmed for me just how efficient nuclear power is.
28:41And I've been surprised at how relatively compact the site is here,
28:45especially when you consider how many homes it generates electricity for.
28:51Hesham 2 was designed in the 70s, built in the 80s,
28:54and was due to operate for 30 years.
28:57But thanks to the skilled engineering teams at EDF,
29:00it could run for more than 40 years.
29:03And with more advanced technology and capacity on its way through future sites,
29:08this may be the end of the tour.
29:10But it's certainly not the end of the story of nuclear power here in the UK.
29:38Transcribed by ESO, translated by —
30:08Transcribed by ESO, translated by —