Man vs. Nature

No competition really, but since Mother Nature was playing coy again this morning with the Sun, one could be forgiven to believe otherwise.

Another wander close to my folks saw me drive down the road to Fairlie before picking up the camera and touring the Hunterston complex.

First on the list was the Clydeport Hunterston Ore Terminal. Completed in 1979, the terminal was originally intended to handle iron ore for the steelworks at Ravenscraig, but with the collapse of the British steel industry, it now handles coal for the Longannet (Fife) and Drax (Yorkshire) power stations. Its mile-long jetty is the longest in the UK. An overhead conveyor is linked to two gantry cranes carries coal to a railhead on the Ayrshire Coast Line. The conveyor is also linked to a ship loader which loads coal into smaller ships in the inner berth, which in turn are transported to Manchester and Belfast.

This was followed up with a trek down to the EDF nuclear power station, Hunterston B. The station has been generating electricity since 1976 and is capable of supplying over one million homes. Further to concerns regarding structural stability with the reactor cores, both reactors were restricted to operating levels of around 70%. Subsequent work has lead to current operating levels of 82% and 73% in reactors 3 and 4 respectively, to provide a combined generation of around 1000 MW. Hunterston B was originally planned to operate until 2011. However, in 2007 this was extended to 2016 and only this month, the current operators EDF Energy stated that the plant could "technically and economically" operate until 2023.

The big glass structure of Hunterston B which houses the twin advanced gas reactors (AGR's), towers over the white buildings of Hunterston A, which contain the deactivated reactors 1 and 2 and were originally opened in 1964. By comparison with the newer plant, the two reactors of Hunterston A provided 180 MW each, which were derated to 150 MW in later years to lower the rate of corrosion of the steel components. Reactors 1 and 2 were decommissioned in 1989 and 1990 respectively.

Our biggest nuclear fission reactor did make an appearance towards the end of my wander though, casting its glow over the top of the clouds and across the bay.

Reference: Wikipedia

Thanks for all your comments yesterday. I hope to catch up tomorrow. Meantime, if you want to see some other shots from my wanders over the last couple of days, they are here.