From the archives: The world’s first nuclear power station, 1956-57

By Tom Lowe2024-04-05T06:00:00

The Builder makes a badly timed recommendation to build nuclear power stations in urban areas, two months before the UK’s worst ever nuclear accident

The beginning of the atomic age in 1945 may have brought with it the ever present threat of global annihilation, but there were some upsides. Calder Hall in Northumbria was the world’s first full-scale commercial nuclear power station when it was opened by The Queen in 1956. Now part of Sellafield in Cumbria, the plant was deemed “ugly” by The Builder but hailed as a shining example of the world’s postwar progress.

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