Oldbury Power Station is a nuclear power station near to the town of Thornbury and is one of the 2 nuclear power stations on the Severn the other one being Berkeley Power station which is 4.5 miles away. Opened in 1967, it had two Magnox reactors producing 424 megawatts, in total (enough electricity on a typical day to serve an urban area twice the size of Bristol). The design net power output of the station was 600 MWe, but due to steel corrosion problems, operating temperature had to be reduced soon after operation started causing a large drop in power output. Initially power output was set at 424 MWe, dropping to 400MWe by 1973. Then as remedial measures were adopted power was progressively increased to 434 MWe by 1983. The power station was due to cease operation in 2008, with decommissioning due to begin in 2009. An announcement on 18 December 2008 by the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority stated that the station will continue to operate for another two years.
Recently Horizon nuclear power put forward proposals to build a new power station at Oldbury. The plans have been met with opposition from the public, (especially people who live in Oldbury, Shepperdine, Hill and Thornbury) as it is expected to be 8 times larger than the existing power station and have 200m cooling towers which will ruin the views across the Severn and be able to be seen from at least as far north as the Malverns and as south the Quantocks. #Bristol #Hill #Nuclear #Oldbury #Power #Severn #Shepperdine #Station #Thornbury
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