Trawsfynydd nuclear power station photographed by Greg White is a former Magnoxpower station situated in Snowdonia National Park in Gwynedd, Wales.
The plant, which became operational in 1965, was the only nuclear power station in the UK to be built inland, with cooling water that was taken from the man-made Llyn Trawsfynydd reservoir. It was closed in 1991. Work to completely decommission the site is expected to take almost 100 years.
Trawsfynydd was shut down in 1991. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has the responsibility of decommissioning the site. The work is expected to last decades.
Beginning in 1993, the highly-radioactive spent fuel rods were removed from both Magnox reactors and sent by rail to Sellafield. This was completed in 1997. Intermediate level waste - such as on the walls of the cooling ponds or pipes - have been carefully removed using robots over the next decades. Contaminated material is stored in a specially-designed building on the site. It will eventually be removed for deep burial in the 2040s. Between 2020 and 2026, the top parts of the two reactor buildings will be partially demolished to reduce their height. But the steel reactor cores - that housed the fuel rods - will not be removed because they are still far too radioactive. The final clearance of the site is scheduled to begin in 2071. By 2083 the area is expected to have been restored to its pre-nuclear state; 124 years after construction started and 92 years after the closure of Trawsfynydd power station. — Wikipedia
Greg White’s crisp, graphic photography draws from the geometry and orderliness he finds in architecture, vast spaces and landscapes. For him, intriguing stories emerge from carefully considered composition, an edit of the visual elements he wants to keep in the frame.
