MINISTER SEES ENTERPRISE AT WORK
IN DOME CLEAN-UP
Scotland's Deputy First Minister visited Dounreay on April 16th and
learned how local engineering expertise is being used to help decommission
the landmark Dounreay Fast Reactor. Jim Wallace, who is also Minister for
Enterprise and Lifelong Learning and MSP for Orkney, toured the famous
Dome of Discovery and met Alex and Pat Grant, whose company Norfrost
Technologies Ltd has manufactured a device for taking a sample of the
crust on the liquid metal coolant.
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Pictured before
stepping inside the famous sphere of the Dounreay Fast Reactor are
local MP John Thurso, Deputy First Minister Jim Wallace, site
director Norman Harrison; Norfrost joint managing directors Alex
Grant and Pat Grant, and Carroll Buxton, chief executive of
Caithness and Sutherland Enterprise. Local MSP Jamie Stone joined
the visit later. |
The tool has been lowered into
position and is expected to take the sample in the near future. The
results will provide information that is essential for the safe
destruction of the liquid metal coolant. Mr Wallace was accompanied by
John Thurso MP and Jamie Stone MSP.
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Inside the access
airlock to the dome, reactor decommissioning manager John Booth
(right) explains how local firms are helping to meet one of the
biggest decommissioning challenges in Britain to (from left) John
Thurso MP, Deputy First Minister and Enterprise and Lifelong
Learning Minister Jim Wallace; and Norman Harrison, site director |
Also present was Carroll Buxton,
chief executive of Caithness and Sutherland Enterprise. Site
director Norman Harrison, who hosted the visit, said: "The Norfrost
contract is a good example of how decommissioning at Dounreay is opening
up new markets for local engineering expertise, both here at the site and
elsewhere in the UK and abroad as more of the old nuclear technology is
dismantled. It's a real win-win situation." |