Over Friday 3^rd and 10^th May, we were lucky enough to get to visit Hinkley Point B as part of our Physics topic on Forces.

HPB stopped producing electricity 2 years ago, after generating power for 46 years (between 1976-2022) where it supplied electricity to 1.8 million households.

When we arrived at the site, Rosie’s Dad (Andy) met us and we went to a security office where they checked all our names and the teachers had to show their passports so that we could collect our passes, before heading to a classroom where Andy introduced us to his colleague Dave. Andy and Dave told us what we were going to do, and we learned that HPB employed 700 people and there are 2 reactors which are no longer operating.

We all collected a hardhat, ear defenders and safety glasses which is when we realised it was a very serious visit, at the entrance to the plant the second group saw armed policemen holding big black rifles, some of us thought it was cool, but some found it a bit scary, we got to look at the guns and even got to look through the aim which was very exciting. We had to scan our passes and then go through a scanner like you have at an airport, then through another set of security gates and finally we were in!
 

The teachers collected their PPE which Mrs L was very excited about and our tour began. We started by going into a simulator of the control room which is an exact replica of the real thing where the engineers do their training, we were allowed to press some buttons and group 1 got to whizz around and have a go at fixing an imaginary problem which was fun. Mr Smith got to sit in the boss’ chair!
 

Next, we went to see a huge turbine which when it was active would have spun 3000 times a minute and the brushes inside had to be replaced by hand which made it a very dangerous job indeed, even with our ear defenders on it was still quite loud. We then went up 10 floors to the top of the building which was the same height as 18 double decker buses luckily, we could go in a lift, there we viewed the 2 reactors and learned all about the uranium pellets which look like fat polo mints, across both reactors there would be 11.5 million pellets and each pellet is equivalent to 1 tonne of coal! We also looked at a huge green machine that is extracting the electricity from the reactors which will all be removed by 2025 and then covered in a big concrete dome for 100 years! 

We then got to see the real control room from a viewing platform, we had to be very quiet, so we didn’t distract the engineers, it was exactly the same as the simulator and was really exciting.
 

As we walked back to the classroom group 1 were lucky enough to see an engineer coming off the plant, so he was able to show us how he uses a small device that he always carries on him to check that he hasn’t been exposed to any radiation whilst he was working. We had our lunch and Andy very kindly gave us all a cookie each and some sweets for the minibus home (which the teachers were delighted about). As we left HPB we saw ‘Big Carl’ which is the largest crane in the world!! We came back to school having learnt loads and knowing that we had been to see something very special as you can tell from these comments:

 

• “Best trip ever.”- Archie 

• “I loved going to Hinkley Point.” - Rosie

• “This was the most fun trip I’ve ever had in school.” - Darcy

• “The best trip I’ve ever had, and I loved learning all the facts.” - Harry C.

• “My favourite was seeing the biggest crane in the world.” - Bella

• “I enjoyed pressing all the buttons, it was an amazing day.” Harry H.