Sellafield afternoon shift was told not to come to work. This was the first lock-down in the history of the plant. On 18 October 2010, the UK government announced that Sellafield was one of the eight possible sites it considered suitable for future nuclear power stations. On 23 June 2011 the government confirmed the suitability of the site, and hoped an electricity generating company would choose to build a power station near Sellafield at Moorside by 2025. In 2003, it was announced that the Thorp reprocessing plant would be closed in 2010 (later extended to 2018 to allow completion of agreed
Hartlepool Nuclear Power Station for a prototype fluidised bed combustion (FBC) coal station at Grimethorpe in Yorkshire. Because of this, the UK missed out on pioneering FBC technology, before it became internationally recognised as the best way of burning coal. Sited from Seaton Carew, and in the middle of the industrial complex of Teesside, the station was to be built closer to any major urban area than any nuclear power station site had been. To make this acceptable, the station's reactors were to be housed in prestressed concrete pressure vessels. The construction of the power station which was undertaken by Nuclear Design & Construction