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Original Text (Annotation: EAW000425 / 665187)
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Capenhurst Uranium Enrichment plant.
In 1946 it was a closed Royal Ordnance factory. The site was chosen in early 1950 to become an enrichment centre for the UK's fledging nuclear arms industry. It began working in February 1952 but successful operations did not start until 1953 (producing low enriched uranium), and highly enriched uranium (HEU) was not produced until 1954. During the 1950s, Capenhurst underwent successive upgrades until it was making more than 125 kg of highly-enriched uranium a year by 1959.
The site continued to operate at full capacity until the end of 1961 when most stages of Uranium enrichment were shut down. After that the plant converted to low-enriched uranium production for civilian energy reactors.
In 1996, it was estimated that between 3.8 and 4.9 tonnes of highly-enriched uranium was produced at Capenhurst, almost all of it between 1959-1961.
In 1982 all uranium enrichement production ceased at Capenhurst. The site was completely demolished and cleared in 2008.
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