Sellafield may have started as early as August 2004, and was categorised as a level 3 event on the International Nuclear Event Scale, resulting in fines. In February 2009, NuGeneration (NuGen), a consortium of GDF Suez, Iberdrola and Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE), announced plans to build a new nuclear power station of up to 3.6GW capacity at Sellafield. In October 2009, NuGen purchased an option to acquire land around Sellafield from the NDA for £70m. On 2 June 2010, Sellafield's gates were closed as a precaution in the wake of a deadly shooting spree and subsequent police manhunt, and the
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