A sprawling assembly of cranes, visible from a considerable distance, marks the location where the UK's inaugural new nuclear plant in a generation is under construction at Hinkley Point in Somerset.

Once construction concludes, this facility is anticipated to produce enough electricity to power around six million homes for the next six decades. However, just a few hundred yards away, two conspicuous reminders persist, underscoring that the legacy of nuclear power stations endures long after their power generation ceases.

The first of these reminders is Hinkley Point B, an imposing angular structure that looms over the Bristol Channel. When it commenced operations in 1976, its two advanced gas-cooled reactors (AGRs) were at the forefront of technology. Yet, after nearly 50 years of operation, cracks emerged in their graphite cores, raising safety concerns, and they were permanently decommissioned last year.

Nevertheless, inside the vast main hall, the scene appears relatively unchanged. Freshly painted equipment shines under bright lighting, and teams of workers in blue overalls move energetically above the reactors.

The primary ongoing activity involves defueling, which entails extracting hundreds of fuel assemblies from deep within the reactor cores, breaking them down, and transporting the resulting waste to storage facilities at Sellafield.

As we observe, a substantial steel tower is being positioned above the reactor; this is the charging machine. It resembles an old-fashioned amusement park ride but is, in fact, a heavily shielded crane. Since the fuel assemblies have been within the reactor for an extended period, they are highly radioactive and require extremely careful handling.

Handling potentially "lethal" nuclear waste is a daily responsibility for EDF's Shaheed Mungur. Shaheed Mungur, the performance improvement manager at the facility, elaborates, "The machine is lifting the fuel assembly, which is highly irradiated and effectively is lethal when it comes to exposure. But that's the reason why you have all of the shielding around it, and why we have to use this machine to handle the fuel in a safe way."

Once the fuel assemblies are removed from the reactor, they are placed in a cell lined with steel for disassembly, during which the used fuel is extracted from its casings. This task is executed remotely by operators stationed in a confined control room. They must peer through a 2-meter thick window filled with a brownish radiation-absorbing fluid to carry out their duties.

Subsequently, the fuel elements are immersed in deep, transparent pools for cooling before being enclosed in robust 45-tonne containers for transportation to Sellafield, where they will enter interim storage.

When operational, each of the two reactors at Hinkley Point B housed 308 fuel assemblies. The complete removal of these assemblies is estimated to take up to four years and incur a cost of approximately £1 billion.

Director Mike Davies emphasizes, "The end of power generation is by no means the end of the station's life. We've been entrusted for years to operate this plant safely, and during that time, it included handling nuclear fuel, which is precisely what we're doing now. We're extracting the nuclear fuel and not replacing it with new fuel."

A worker operates a well-shielded crane (the green machinery) above the reactor via remote control. Upon the completion of the defueling process, EDF will transfer the site to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).

To understand the subsequent steps, it's beneficial to look to the neighboring power station, Hinkley Point A. This site represents one of the earliest nuclear facilities in the UK, with its two reactors commissioned in 1965 and permanently shut down in 2000. Nearly twenty-five years later, the two block-shaped reactor buildings continue to loom large on the skyline. However, other structures, including the vast turbine hall, have been dismantled, leaving behind a deep, overgrown excavation.

Former fuel storage ponds have been emptied, cleaned, and repainted to mitigate radiation risks, though visitors are cautioned against lingering in their vicinity. Yet, in another location, a water-filled chamber still holds a significant amount of radioactive debris, which is being meticulously extracted.

A newly constructed concrete vault, characterized by thick walls, has been established on the premises to serve as a storage facility for intermediate-level radioactive waste.

Nonetheless, one of the most significant ongoing challenges relates to an entirely distinct industrial hazard. Within one of the former boiler houses, teams of workers wearing respiratory protection equipment are meticulously cleaning extensive networks of piping by hand, with the aim of eliminating asbestos residues. During the plant's construction, substantial quantities of asbestos were employed for insulation, and thousands of tons have already been removed.

According to current plans, the majority of decommissioning activities will be finalized by 2039. However, the reactor buildings themselves will remain in place, sealed against environmental exposure, for an additional 20 to 40 years.

Site Director Kirandeep Basra-Steele assures, "The site will be safe and secure. The waste and the associated hazards will be effectively contained and securely stored." This phase is referred to as "care and maintenance." The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) believes that it will be safer to delay the disassembly of the reactor buildings since radioactivity naturally diminishes over time.

With the anticipated decade-long final stage of decommissioning, the site is not expected to be completely cleared until at least the 2070s, marking 70 years after ceasing power generation.

Furthermore, the most hazardous byproducts generated by both Hinkley A and B during their operational lifetimes will require meticulous handling, possibly for many generations to come.

Despite nuclear plants being in operation in the UK since 1956, there is still no permanent repository for high or intermediate-level wastes, some of which will remain hazardous for thousands of years. The government does have plans to establish a geological disposal facility (GDF) deep underground, but this initiative won't be ready for several decades.

Critics of the nuclear industry argue that the decommissioning challenges of older plants and the absence of a permanent waste solution make it unwise to construct new ones. As Doug Parr, Chief Scientist at Greenpeace UK, puts it, "The key lesson from the current difficulty in managing nuclear waste is that we shouldn't be generating more of it."

Nonetheless, construction of the new power station, Hinkley Point C, is moving forward, with power generation slated to commence in four years. However, like its predecessors, it will eventually have to undergo decommissioning. A funded decommissioning plan, now mandated by law, has already been devised. If all proceeds according to the plan, the decommissioning process will span approximately two decades, meaning the remnants of the plant won't be completely eliminated until well into the 22nd century.