Magnox

This article is part of the Nuclear Spin project of Spinwatch.

Magnox Electric Limited is a nuclear decommissioning Site Licence Company (SLC) controlled by Reactor Sites Management Company.

It is operating and decommissioning the UK’s first generation of nuclear power stations on behalf of their government-run owner, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).

Magnox is owned by Energy Solutions, Inc., a company with reported revenues of over $1.75 billion. The lion’s share of this comes from the NDA's decommissioning contracts for Magnox North and Magnox South.

Controversies

In 2009 the Environment Agency won its prosecution against Magnox Electric Ltd who were ordered to pay £400,000 for allowing a radioactive leak to continue for 14 years without being detected at the Bradwell-on-sea plant in Essex.

Activities

In October 2013 Magnox submitted a periodic safety review (PSR) to the UK Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) seeking extension of lifetime of the Wylfa 1 nuclear reactor in Anglesey, North Wales. Originally scheduled to shut down in September 2014, the reactor is now likely to continue operations for an additional 15 months.

Wylfa's 2 × 490 MW Magnox reactors are the world's last operational Magnox reactors.

Sites

Berkeley, Bradwell, Chapelcross, Dungeness A, Hinkley Point A, Hunterston A, Oldbury, Sizewell A, Trawsfynydd and Wylfa.

PR firm

In 2013 Marick Communications produced a video that focused on Magnox's 'year of progress in cleaning up some of the UK’s nuclear legacy'.

the video tells the story of a year of safe delivery for Magnox, including the removal of the last spent fuel from Chapelcross (accounting for more than 99% of the radioactive material held on the site), the completion of the project to safely remove and dispose of the asbestos from Hinkley Point A, recovery and treatment of radioactive wastes from historic storage facilities and outstanding electricity generation at Wylfa and Maentwrog sites in North Wales.

People

• Nigel Monckton - Head of Communications at Magnox

Contractors

In 2011 Mace won two major Magnox contracts awarded for decommissioning work, off the back of the Government Procurement Service project management and design team framework.

The first project is a managed services contract at Sizewell in Suffolk, the second contract is for programme management support at the Berkeley site in Gloucestershire. The focus of our activities on both sites will be on the management of the delivery of projects as part of the decommissioning programmes.