- 2 days ago
Nuclear Reactor Cooling Towers Demolition:
Blowdown is an explosive four part building demolition series profiling some of the most challenging projects of Controlled Demolition Inc of Phoenix, Maryland. Each of the structures, some notable, others notorious is unique and present the team with challenges ranging from the structural, to the explosive and to the bureaucratic. Sellafield has a long history of nuclear incidents and mishaps dating back to the infamous Windscale Fire in 1957. Sellafield now stores and treats nuclear waste and is home to 90% of Britain’s industrial radioactivity. The tension is increased by the fact that explosives have never been used on an active nuclear site in the United Kingdom before and it has taken four years to overcome the bureaucratic hurdles. The subjects of the film are four nuclear cooling towers. Each one is 88 m high and has an estimated mass of 5,200 tons. Of particular concern is the fact that the towers are only 40 meters away from a nuclear fuel handling plant. There has been a steady deterioration of the towers and there is the concern of an inadvertent collapse. Explosive demolition has been determined to be the safest and most cost effective means of removing the towers.
Each of the towers will be loaded with three sets of explosives. The first set will be in the legs of the towers, encircling 60% of the circumference. The second set will be set in a predrilled band around the same 60% approximately 20 m up. Charges will also be loaded into 3 vertical slots about 10 meters high which should cause the concrete shells of the towers to deform, rotate and collapse within the drop zone.
With just 10 days to load all four towers, the team struggles safely load and rig more than 4,500 charges and time the explosions to minimize the risks to the surrounding site. The team must evaluate each risk, real or imagined and account for it in the plan. Major concerns are projectiles, ground vibration and air over pressure that could compromise operations at the nuclear facility.
Blowdown is an explosive four part building demolition series profiling some of the most challenging projects of Controlled Demolition Inc of Phoenix, Maryland. Each of the structures, some notable, others notorious is unique and present the team with challenges ranging from the structural, to the explosive and to the bureaucratic. Sellafield has a long history of nuclear incidents and mishaps dating back to the infamous Windscale Fire in 1957. Sellafield now stores and treats nuclear waste and is home to 90% of Britain’s industrial radioactivity. The tension is increased by the fact that explosives have never been used on an active nuclear site in the United Kingdom before and it has taken four years to overcome the bureaucratic hurdles. The subjects of the film are four nuclear cooling towers. Each one is 88 m high and has an estimated mass of 5,200 tons. Of particular concern is the fact that the towers are only 40 meters away from a nuclear fuel handling plant. There has been a steady deterioration of the towers and there is the concern of an inadvertent collapse. Explosive demolition has been determined to be the safest and most cost effective means of removing the towers.
Each of the towers will be loaded with three sets of explosives. The first set will be in the legs of the towers, encircling 60% of the circumference. The second set will be set in a predrilled band around the same 60% approximately 20 m up. Charges will also be loaded into 3 vertical slots about 10 meters high which should cause the concrete shells of the towers to deform, rotate and collapse within the drop zone.
With just 10 days to load all four towers, the team struggles safely load and rig more than 4,500 charges and time the explosions to minimize the risks to the surrounding site. The team must evaluate each risk, real or imagined and account for it in the plan. Major concerns are projectiles, ground vibration and air over pressure that could compromise operations at the nuclear facility.
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TVTranscript
00:01Four massive towers on a nuclear site must come down.
00:10The demolition team has 10 days and over 4,000 sticks of TNT.
00:16But with the site's dark past and a toxic legacy, there's a deadly risk.
00:30Will they fall within the drop zone?
00:34Or create another nuclear disaster?
01:00The northwest coast of England is home to the Sellafield Nuclear Facility.
01:05Once the site of the world's worst nuclear accident.
01:10Controlled Demolition Incorporated, a family demolition team from Phoenix, Maryland,
01:15is descending on this remote English town to take down these, the outdated nuclear plant cooling towers.
01:2115 minutes to blow down.
01:26The team checks in.
01:29Stacy is in position and clear.
01:32Ray Zikowski, can you read me?
01:35They prepare to ignite thousands of sticks of dynamite loaded into four towers.
01:41Beside some of the deadliest buildings on the planet.
01:48Full of nuclear waste.
01:52Will the towers drop away from these buildings or on them?
01:57If they hit the buildings, an unprecedented nuclear incident could unfold.
02:03They're using high speed cameras to photograph this historic event.
02:12Will they capture a triumphant demolition in minute detail?
02:16Or record a historically colossal failure?
02:19Everything is set here, down at station A.
02:22We just switched on the cameras and we are good to go.
02:24Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, fire.
02:46The client, Sellafield Limited, is responsible for cleaning up the site
02:50and has hired the Loiseau family for this unique project.
02:55A close-knit family of seasoned experts, Marc Loiseau is the project leader.
03:00And in a job where everything hangs in the balance,
03:03Marc knows he must keep his most trusted team close at hand.
03:07And he does.
03:09Wife Sherry, daughters Devon and Stacy.
03:12An extraordinary family business.
03:14But this is not an ordinary job.
03:16My father absolutely adores a challenge.
03:21The harder the structure, the more people that say it's impossible,
03:26the more eager he is to do it.
03:28He's taken off more projects that I can name or I've pulled up on site
03:32and looked up and said, you are out of your mind.
03:35He says, no, no, we'll figure it out.
03:37We do.
03:38We do.
03:43For the next ten days, CDI will rig and hang on these 88-meter-high monoliths,
03:49packing over 4,000 sticks of TNT into the shell and legs
03:54in order to bring them to the ground.
03:55The towers were built to last 50 years, and they're pushing 60.
04:03An accidental collapse puts nearby plant personnel
04:08and their sensitive reprocessing operations at great risk.
04:13They haven't got a lot longer to stand.
04:16We've been carrying out civil checks on them every week,
04:18and the condition of them has been deteriorating rapidly.
04:27Sellafield Limited worries about these towers and strong winds.
04:34Actually, the tower down at Station B is deteriorated so bad
04:39that when the winds exceed, I think, 40 miles per hour,
04:41they shut the roads down.
04:43There have been cooling towers that were not designed properly here in England
04:49that collapsed during high winds.
04:53In 1965, the Ferry Bridge towers collapsed because of high winds and poor design.
04:59Officials fear it could happen again.
05:03Deciding to remove the towers is one thing.
05:07Deciding how is another.
05:10If Sellafield Limited chooses a conventional wrecking ball method,
05:15it would mean months of dust and a hazardous work environment.
05:18Dust is a byproduct of any demolition project.
05:21If you were to take the structure down conventionally
05:24and beat on it with an excavator, you're going to create dust,
05:27only you're going to have a chronic-type event.
05:30It's going to be long, drawn-out dust every day.
05:33By using explosives, you end up with an acute event.
05:35A quick demolition allows the entire plant to return to normal operations as soon as possible
05:42and minimizes long-term disruptions.
05:44They first proved that every other method available to them
05:49was inadequate to meet the safety requirements and concerns of Sellafield.
05:53They proved that the only way left was explosive demolition.
05:56The normally cautious plant managers make two contentious decisions.
06:00The first, to use explosives at an operational British nuclear facility.
06:06It has never been done successfully before.
06:09You know, for the first time in my life,
06:13we're in a place where the client's got more dangerous stuff than I do.
06:18The second, hiring Americans to do it.
06:22I think what British nuclear was looking for was to have the people that had the most explosive demolition experience
06:31in quote-unquote nuclear facilities worldwide.
06:34And that's just us.
06:36And this experience includes other nuclear cooling towers.
06:41In May 2006, controlled demolition brought down the massive Trojan Tower near Portland, Oregon.
06:46Five, four, three, two, one, fire!
07:16To be continued...
07:17To be continued...
07:19To be continued...
07:20To be continued...
07:22To be continued...
07:24...and the first commercial nuclear reactor in 1956.
07:28Though Sellafield no longer generates power,
07:32it's home to 1,290 cubic meters of high-level nuclear waste
07:36nuclear waste and 8,150 cubic meters of spent nuclear fuel together enough to
07:43fill 284 20-foot long cargo containers representing more than 90% of the UK's
07:50total industrial radioactivity the cesium-137 alone should it ever be
07:56released would cause an event nearly 100 times the size of the Chernobyl disaster
08:00we're in an active facility which is processing here vitrifying waste over here there's there's a
08:11facility you know 150 feet over there that has stuff in there that we're not allowed to know
08:16about so the project poses a unique challenge because two of the towers stand within 40 meters
08:24of a nuclear reprocessing facility CDI must bring down over 10,000 tons of concrete with perfect
08:31accuracy the price of failure is simply too high mark is the demolition designer on the project
08:39cellafield limited wants mark to drop the towers away from the nuclear facilities at site B this
08:50is away from the magnox building over at site A the concern is nuclear reactor 4 the drop zone
08:57extends 200 meters and is contained by these fence lines it's a matter of choosing what combination
09:03of delay patterns what kind of combination of delays in terms of letting things move or letting the
09:08structure walk so we're walking the structure a little bit this way with our delay pattern by going
09:13with a shell then leg method but not nearly as as far as it might have been if we'd use a different
09:19method but it'll be good it'll be very good his drop plan had better be right
09:25mark starts inside the shell with a band about 20 meters up it runs about two-thirds the way around
09:39the shell in the direction they want the towers to fall the crew has pre-drilled 900 specially placed
09:46holes you'll see it's sort of a five a five spot pattern these holes work together so this hole is
09:54responsible for this much concrete this hole is responsible for this much concrete but all of
09:58them work is sort of they're all working together and to make sure the towers drop where he wants them
10:03to mark introduces his own special technique the addition of three vertical slots the upper slot serves
10:12to cripple in on itself because of the the hyperbolic shape of the structure the shell will fold in
10:19towards the direction of the center slot and continue the rotational tilting of the structure in the
10:24intended direction of the fall a split second after the charges in the shell detonate the dynamite
10:31loaded into the legs will go off as with the shell only 60% of the legs will be loaded to create
10:38movement in the direction of the explosions drop down here I can I can take some stuff off drop down
10:45just a little bit marks foolproof plan must address every hazard which includes flying debris
10:51when mark detonates the explosives it will send chunks of concrete hurtling at high speeds toward the adjacent
11:01buildings mark devises a simple solution to prevent this covering the slots and tower links with two
11:12layers of chain link fencing and geotextile fabric after the crew loads the explosives
11:17this fencing stops the large pieces of debris flying off the fabric traps the small pieces
11:32Tom Dowd is building the protective barrier here on the columns we're using the same basic
11:46materials that we're using up on the shell these will heave will accept and catch all of that
11:53debris displacing the concrete deflecting the rebar letting the structure start to come down without
11:59letting any of the the fly of debris the team will also hang fabric around the entire base of the
12:06towers an extra precaution to catch any last bits of debris but they're finding it easier said than done
12:16in the meantime the explosives are scheduled to arrive and the team is about to encounter a major setback
12:26a American demolition team arrives at the cellafield nuclear plant less than two weeks before the
12:48scheduled implosion of its four out-of-date cooling towers the plan is unprecedented explosives have never
12:55been used successfully at an operational nuclear site in the UK before well the team prepares to
13:02make history everyone is aware of the stakes Charles Moran has been hired by cellafield limited to keep an eye on
13:10CDI's work cellafield has had a sort of a checkered history it's well known in the UK there have been
13:17incidents and publicity over the years for various reasons cellafield's first job was to produce
13:26plutonium for nuclear bombs in the early days of the Cold War this was kept secret from the British public
13:38in Parliament for years after the program started by 1956 the reactors were among the first anywhere in
13:47the world to generate commercial electricity electricity for 200,000 homes was a useful byproduct of the weapons
13:55program cellafield and its nascent nuclear industry suffered tremendous growing pains from 1950 to 2000 21
14:06serious incidents or accidents were reported and received rankings on the international nuclear event
14:11scale this is pile one a nuclear reactor in the 1950s it produced tritium for the British hydrogen bomb
14:28within the reactor control rods were withdrawn to start a chain reaction with canisters of lithium and
14:35magnesium but on October 10 1957 the core of this nuclear reactor caught fire and radioactive
14:43contamination was released through the cooling chains with temperatures climbing 20 degrees a minute workers
14:49fought the fire ultimately flooding the reactor with water as temperatures reached 1300 degrees centigrade
14:58the crew brought the reactor back under control
15:00the radiated water was then circulated through the cooling towers a part of the system never intended to be exposed
15:14the event known as the wind scale fire was considered the world's worst nuclear disaster until chernobyl
15:21while it made front page news officials downplayed its significance despite the fact fallout was detected as far away as germany and norway
15:28and today a radioactive legacy still lurks in the towers
15:40jill marsden a long time cellafield employee understands the danger
15:45at the time it was an open cooling water system so we did end up with small amounts of radioactive liquor in
15:51in the these towers once cdi drops these towers cellafield specialists will process the radioactive debris
16:04cellafield's troubled history increases the pressure on the team and management is concerned about the operation
16:09i think there's a lot of this job doesn't go according to plan and it'll be a disaster
16:17mark has no illusions about what he's gotten his family into
16:22explosives haven't been used at at active nuclear sites here in the uk
16:26there's a sensitivity to anything nuclear here that is greater than you might have in the u.s
16:32so mark and the team take extra steps to measure and minimize the effect of the detonations
16:45in preparation for the implosion the team must be able to measure the
16:48impact the explosions have on the surrounding buildings
16:53cdi's main focus is these two structures
16:56the magnox reprocessing plant is less than 50 meters away from site a nuclear reactor 4 is within
17:03reach of site b the team worries about the shockwave that will radiate out from the explosions
17:11technicians place seismographs to monitor ground vibration yeah
17:18what we tend to find with this type of demolition is that the ground vibration is not the main problem
17:26with this it will be the air blast so this equipment itself has a microphone that will also be triggered
17:36at exactly the same time and that microphone will pick up the air blast air over pressure is sort of
17:43like when you stand in front of a speaker at a nightclub and you feel that boom boom boom in your chest
17:47that's air over pressure that you're feeling mark must stagger the implosions of the towers
17:52a mere one second delay between explosions should allow them to reduce the amount of air over pressure
17:59generated but will it be enough to prevent damaging the surrounding buildings
18:07meanwhile over at site b stacy and her team are almost ready to load the first tower with explosives
18:15cdi has been planning this day for nearly two years
18:17full bottom line and then put a second of the implosion date is only days away
18:25with four towers to load they have a daunting amount of work to do
18:29to meet their deadline the demo team ensures everything is ready before they bring explosives on site
18:34get past the vertical
18:41but just as they're about to start sellafield delivers bad news
18:46um evidently somewhere else on the plant there is a leak or a hole or something once we open a box of
18:53explosives we have to cut it we have to load it in the hole so it's sort of a logistical nightmare here
19:00the team must leave the site
19:04stacy and her family return to the hotel to wait for an all clear from the nuclear authorities
19:10so here we are this is supposed to be day two of loading operations we have not
19:15touched much less seen the stick of dynamite um evidently the plant is just on complete lockdown at
19:21the moment it's a beautiful day again we're looking out with the weather
19:25and we should be full on you know loading these structures and we can't we're stuck
19:31this family of demolition experts is not used to sitting back
19:35but right now it's a waiting game
19:42in the construction world cdi are demolition superstars
19:48they claim world's records for dropping the largest structures
19:51like the jl hudson department store detroit michigan in 1998 the tallest building ever employed
20:16the seattle king one by volume the largest structure ever employed
20:21and in san juan puerto rico the most buildings
20:51blown down in a single implosion sequence.
21:07After two days delay,
21:09Sellafield concludes that it's safe to proceed
21:12and the demolition team is allowed back on site.
21:15This time, with Dutton.
21:21Here on site, the team assembles more than 4,000 sticks of dynamite.
21:34The crew prepares an intricate system of initiator cord,
21:37detonation cord, and detonators.
21:39Done.
21:47Advances in explosives technology have made dynamite so stable that it can be cut with a knife.
21:56Ray then inserts the detonators, along with a section of detonation cord.
22:00You punch the hole in the dynamite to prepare it for the detonator.
22:06The detonator is a non-electric detonator.
22:08It has an internal timing of 100 milliseconds.
22:12So in one-tenth of a second after the cord initiates this clip,
22:17sends an explosive pulse through the shock tube,
22:20initiates the timer in here.
22:21It burns for 100 milliseconds.
22:25Then it detonates.
22:27Since it's inside the dynamite, the dynamite then explodes.
22:31By using these detonators,
22:32the team controls the timing and order of the explosives in each tower.
22:36This is how they will walk the towers away from the surrounding buildings as they fall.
22:43The configuration CEI uses is called the shell then leg method,
22:52because they detonate the horizontal slot on the shell
22:55in 45 milliseconds before they detonate the charges in the legs.
23:02Stacy can slow the implosion pattern down by linking the detonators.
23:07So this line connects these towers together.
23:10They'll be initiated in the center between the two towers.
23:14So by bringing this line to here,
23:15this is how I'm slowing this tower down with this daisy chain of detonators.
23:19This all adds up to one full second.
23:24The team hopes this one-second delay between tower implosions
23:28will reduce the air over pressure.
23:30The crew must wire each of the four towers.
23:33It's a massive amount of work, increasing the opportunity for errors,
23:37so Mark builds in redundancy to prevent a disaster.
23:40We only get one chance to do this right.
23:42The explosive signal didn't go along that cord.
23:45What would happen is it would jump across to that parallel cord,
23:48go by it, jump back, and be going again.
23:52What if both of those rolls of detonating cord over there had problems?
23:57What we have here is this line closes the back.
24:00So any one of the blasting amps here can be set off one of four ways.
24:04It's quadruple redundancy.
24:06In Luxembourg, another demolition team tried to drop a different cooling tower.
24:11But because the demolition contractor made a significant error, it fell on a nearby factory.
24:32Mark and the team hope to avoid the same fate.
24:50The American demolition team has begun to load the explosive charges into the cooling towers.
24:57And team member Tom Dow knows that no two demolitions are ever the same.
25:11You can't walk into any structure and say, oh, this is another concrete building.
25:22Whether it be construction type, whether it be proximity to adjacent structures, they all have their own challenges.
25:31One of the most daunting things about the towers is their size.
25:39They are 88 metres high with a 184 metre circumference.
25:46Engineers designed these towers to push air upward.
25:50The cooling towers dispose of the excess heat generated by the nuclear reactors.
25:54After powering the turbines, the steam is pumped to the tower and sprayed on the walls.
26:00The tower draws air inside and funnels it up, creating a natural draft.
26:06As the water moves down, the draft cools the water.
26:10Most of the cooled water collects in the catch basin and then is cycled back to the reactor.
26:15The tower design harnesses the wind.
26:25And being on the coast, there's a steady supply year-round.
26:29The weather around at Sellafield is pretty unsettled generally.
26:33It's probably not one of the nicest places of the Cymru to be at times.
26:38It can be quite wet and quite windy and quite wild.
26:41What works for the towers hinders the team.
26:43The venturi effect that's created by the nature of the structure in this shape can actually amplify the winds inside.
26:54There's no way to shut off the air flow.
26:56So the team works inside these wind tunnels.
26:59But there are safety limits.
27:01If you've ever been in a MUC in a 28-mile-an-hour wind, you don't want to be there.
27:06We'll usually bring our men down before that.
27:07MUC stands for Mobile Elevated Work Platform.
27:14The team does so much of their work at heights of about 20 meters.
27:18They're completely dependent on these machines.
27:20Stacey uses these man lifts to get up inside the shell.
27:36It's a challenge in the wind and on uneven terrain.
27:39Every movement is extremely exaggerated up here.
27:41You run over a pebble this big on the ground and the basket's moving 20 feet.
27:46You've got to get your sea legs.
27:48I've been in this basket for a minimum of eight hours a day for the last three days.
27:52So I've definitely got my sea legs.
27:55I was standing in the shower last night going like this because I'm so used to balancing.
28:00Stacy loads the prepared charges in the upper slot.
28:19Now it looks like a mess.
28:21But what that lets me do is when I place it in a hole, it's now very mushy.
28:26And when I compress it, I'm achieving what we call intimacy.
28:31That means I've got the explosives butted up right against the inside of the hole.
28:36So that transfer of energy is more direct.
28:41The pressure Stacy applies to the dynamite is called tamping.
28:45She has no qualms about pounding away.
28:48Well, the truth is, this is completely inert.
28:53It might as well be a Twinkie until I detonate it.
29:00Stacy tamps the explosives into the holes and seals them in place with insulating foam.
29:06The foam expands then hardens, keeping the explosive firmly in place.
29:11All we want to do is create a little tiny bit of resistance, a nanosecond of resistance,
29:16to force that explosive energy to disrupt the concrete instead of trying to come in right back out the hole.
29:22It wants to take the path of least resistance.
29:25While Stacy loads the tower shell in Site B, the rest of the team loads the tower legs in Site A.
29:30The tower shell stands on these legs.
29:41When the tower was operational, the leg openings pulled air inside the tower and upwards.
29:46Now these legs will serve a new purpose.
29:51As it comes down, as these legs compress, they'll act as shock absorbers as the rest of the shell.
30:01So as it comes down, it comes down slow, slow enough that you don't get an extreme impact.
30:08As with the shell above, Tom loads 60% of the legs on the same side as they want the towers to fall.
30:16With Tom finishing loading the legs at Site A, over at Site B, Mark is now wiring the dynamite together.
30:24He's doing it with this detonation cord.
30:29It's an explosives-filled rope.
30:30It's basically an instantaneous connector between charges and it lends itself nicely to the non-L system.
30:41But you worry about those wire connections moving in the wind, they can break.
30:45This is tough stuff, really tough stuff.
30:52Mark will initiate the detonation, sending a pulse down this line about 7,600 meters per second.
30:58It instantly detonates the shell charges, followed 25 milliseconds later by the leg charges.
31:05It's a complicated whip to make work, and they only have one chance to get it right.
31:13I want to keep the clips just right in here on either side of the column.
31:17I don't want them in the middle.
31:18I don't want them out too far because that curtain might whip on it.
31:22Mark has three steps to complete the wiring of the tower for the implosion.
31:26Where are your ties?
31:29First, he wraps the base of the tower with what he calls the trunk line, using the orange non-electric cord.
31:35And as a backup, Mark returns the line back on itself.
31:42And for redundancy on redundancy, jumper lines are tied between them.
31:45Second connection, Mark's team clips the leg charges to this main trunk line.
31:56These yellow lines are connected to the fuses that will delay the leg implosion.
32:00The third and final connection is the horizontal slot to the main trunk line.
32:11I have enough cord.
32:12There you go.
32:14Stacy sends two lines from each side of the slot to the base of the tower.
32:18The entire blowdown depends on these few lines working.
32:24She checks every inch of cord.
32:28So this is a perfect example of what I'm worried about when we're dropping these down lines.
32:32Right here, you just have a little point where the cord has to come in contact with the concrete.
32:36If the wind were to get kicking up and this started rubbing, this would wear through this very, very quickly.
32:42So what I'm going to do is just put some tape here to kind of pat it a bit and give it a little protection.
32:50She does her best to protect every inch, but there are things out of her control.
32:55The odds are extraordinarily slim.
32:58However, Lightning could, in theory, strike this line directly and set the whole tower off.
33:07In theory. I've never seen it happen. I've never even heard of it happening.
33:11But, you know, you have to allow for that possibility.
33:16Local meteorologists can give ten hours advance warning for the potential of lightning.
33:21If an electrical storm develops, the site would be evacuated until it passed.
33:28Stacy connects the last of the detonation lines, and Site B is ready to go.
33:36With the wiring done, Ray can unroll the fabric, which will cover the legs.
33:41We're cutting the ropes. You see, we've bundled it all up.
33:45A little like sausage rolls, we're cutting the ropes, and the wind gets underneath it and rolls it down.
33:52And once we get it all down, we'll take some rope and we'll tie it to the base of the columns,
33:56keep it from lifting up, and we'll be done. Real easy.
33:59At least, that's his intent. Until the wind picks up off the Irish Sea.
34:09Oh, the wind is going to be a big problem. If the wind blows like this, it's really going to play havoc with our curtain.
34:17See, it's, it's, it's stuck on there.
34:22The flapping fabric is more than a nuisance. It threatens the entire operation.
34:28The sheet tangles around the detonation cord and shock tubes connected to the explosives.
34:32Yeah, if you could, because the wind is going to just rip it down.
34:37The possibility that could wrap around a shock tube and snap it and, you know, have a premature detonation, which, you know.
34:44If you snap the tube, pulled it and snapped it, you could generate enough force and pressure to set the, actually set the detonator off.
34:52Called shock tube for a reason.
34:53Just leave it up. You got a seam right here.
34:58The crew pitches in to help Ray get the curtains under control.
35:02Right. See where you have the, the bigger column with the, actually the charges are in it.
35:07Just start at that piece and come this way.
35:10Ray's not having a good day.
35:14He needs to scrap the plan to wrap protective fabric around the entire base of the structure.
35:20There doesn't seem to be an alternative.
35:21And it's about to get worse.
35:27Hello, Matt.
35:29Yes, sir.
35:31I was about to. Why?
35:35Okay. Well, you want me to, you want me to stop the Cape guys, cause they're about ready to go.
35:43You want me to stop them and leave them here or stop them and send them home?
35:47Now what?
35:51We are officially on hold again. Excuse me.
35:54Sellafield Limited must do a risk assessment on whether they can scrap the protective curtain.
36:02While Sellafield management deliberates, the fabric continues to threaten the operation.
36:06We enclose the entire base. It didn't like it. It had a four times pressure differential. We had five mile per hour winds here. We had nearly 20 mile per hour winds in the inside the tower. Basically tore cover to shreds.
36:20Really, the curtain is just an additional layer of protection. The column cover is heavy chain link fence, double wraps of this fabric. I'm totally comfortable with that cover by itself. The curtain was simply an add-on. I don't feel like we're taking any chances with breaking windows by not having the curtain at all.
36:35Sellafield agrees to resolve the problem just in time.
36:42The solution now is to only put 50% of the curtain in where the most sensitive buildings are. That's allowing the air to pass more easily up the cooling tower and it's, as you can see, it's keeping the curtain intact.
36:54It's shot day. The implosion is set for just after sunrise. In the meantime, Mark and his team work feverishly to finish the preparations.
37:10The dynamite is fully loaded and ready to pull these towers down. Mark sets up the triggering system for the explosives.
37:18He runs the detonation cord to the initiation point.
37:23This is the initiation harness for station A. And the detonating cord goes in between the two. Everything is redundant. You have to assume that something can go wrong. It will.
37:35The non-electric detonation cord extends 435 metres from tower to trigger point.
37:41Right.
37:45When initiated, a pulse will travel at about 7,600 metres per second to the first set of towers.
37:51There was a project here in the UK not too long ago where the project was delayed because overnight rabbits had chewed through these non-L lines.
38:00So as a precautionary measure, what we're doing now is elevating the lines so we don't repeat that problem.
38:09Over the hill, under the fence, back to the firing point we go.
38:17Good or bad, Sellafield is about to make history again.
38:21Again.
38:32On the site of Sellafield nuclear plant, the four cooling towers are loaded with explosives.
38:39It's one hour to blow down.
38:40The team sets up a blast initiation point midway between the two sets of towers.
38:49From here, Mark and Matt will trigger the first set of explosives for towers 3 and 4 at Site B.
38:55Approximately five minutes later, Mark will implode towers 1 and 2 at Site A, depending on what he observes in the first implosion.
39:02Outside the perimeter, high up on these vantage points, the demolition team sets up observation posts.
39:12We've got observers up on the hill here who are going to visually observe how the towers fall to make sure we don't have what is called a sit-down.
39:20The tower comes down and sits and doesn't come down all the way.
39:23Mark considers a sit-down to be a serious problem.
39:25In this scenario, a large unstable and unpredictable chunk of the tower will be left standing.
39:32Mark may have to set additional explosives or a construction crew might have to bring it down with machines.
39:38If that happens, the project will be considered a failure, delaying operations and placing the nuclear facilities at risk.
39:46Nearby operations would continue to be suspended until Mark is able to guarantee everyone's safety by removing the sit-down.
39:53If everything visually goes to plan, we will not be checking the vibration results.
40:00We're going to move right into the 15-minute and counting mode for Station A because we're shutting down a fair portion of Sellafield in order to bring these towers down.
40:10The goal is to get them down quickly and let the facility return to normal as soon as possible.
40:16Meanwhile, Stacy sets up to record the implosion for later study.
40:20So really all we're doing now is doing final camera setup and I've got mine in position.
40:26There's other filming going on here that they're using a high-speed camera, which we would really like to see the end result of because we could really see incredible detail on the actual implosion and how it exactly is working.
40:37So I'm very curious to see that shot after it comes down.
40:40Stacy's been working intimately with the towers, but from here she can see the big picture.
40:44You'll see a very slight bow towards each other, almost like a curtsy, and then they should come basically straight down.
40:52So visually it should be really neat. And of course we've got the other two towers dead center behind us, so we'll actually get to the best of both worlds here. We'll get to see all four come down from this location.
41:01Everyone is excited as the clock counts down.
41:06Quarter two. Quarter two. Good. Will do. All right. Let's go.
41:13Matt's been on this job for two and a half years. He can't hide his emotions.
41:18Oh, I'm going to feel wow! I'm going to feel so great. I don't drink at all, but most probably I will have a toast on Saturday afternoon with the guys.
41:30Says he has some firearms going on.
41:33Years of planning are coming to an end for everyone in South Africa.
41:37The team at the moment are just really trying to just stay focused. We're all trying to stay calm. We know we've got all of the arrangements in place that we need.
41:47It's like a rocket launch as the CDI team runs their final check.
41:53Check-in begins.
41:56Stacy is in position and clear.
41:59All right, Ray Zikowski, can you read me?
42:02Hold them up.
42:03One minute!
42:08The moment of truth arrives.
42:12Nine, eight, seven!
42:16Six, five, four, three, two, one, fire!
42:21One, fire!
42:41We're clear. We're clear.
42:43Look good from here. Stacy, how is your angle?
42:47Beautiful. We're clear.
42:49The first two towers are down, but there's a problem.
42:54For station A, I have no view.
42:57For the next implosion, Stacy is operating blind.
43:01But from other angles, things look good.
43:06Mark calls for the second shot to go immediately.
43:12All right, CDI, we already have approval to proceed with station A.
43:16We have approval. We're setting up the lines now, so get ready.
43:20Okay, if you don't have an angle from there, we're proceeding regardless because of the window that we have.
43:24Ray Zikowski, are you set up and ready?
43:28Only Ray is left to watch for problems.
43:31Ray is in position, all clear.
43:34Right, Matt, we're ready.
43:3615 seconds.
43:40This is the 15-second siren.
43:47We've got a big view of nothing.
43:48Seven, six, five.
43:57Fire.
44:18Fire.
44:36At long last, the towers are down.
44:39Mark and Matt are relieved, but their job is unfinished.
44:43We're going to let the dust clear.
44:45From a distance, Mark sees a problem.
44:48A portion of the tower is still standing.
45:03The towers have dropped in a cloud of dust.
45:06But as the dust settles, the team must head into the exclusion zone.
45:11Mark is still responsible for the site.
45:13He won't release it back to Sellafield until he personally confirms the towers fell safely to the drop zone.
45:22I don't think this can reach the Harris fencing.
45:26He will also confirm that the remains of the tower left standing are stable.
45:31As the expert, only he can make that call.
45:34This is how the towers fall.
45:40Mark sends a pulse down the initiation cord.
45:44It zooms from the initiation point to the towers at 7,600 meters per second.
45:49The first 900 sticks of dynamite explode in a shell at the first tower.
45:50The first 900 sticks of dynamite explode in a shell at the first tower.
45:5525 milliseconds later, the 200 leg traps explode.
45:56One second later, Mark explodes the second time in this same sequence.
46:002.
46:013.
46:02This has been a powerful article.
46:03It's just not the same yet.
46:05You'll get the fury of the tower, everyone after the rocket's secure.
46:06I'd be disappointed.
46:07Add energia orogenic microfiber.
46:08Good to be on the light.
46:09You're up here.
46:10You're up here.
46:11I'm done.
46:12You're up here.
46:13We're up here.
46:14I'm done.
46:15You're up here.
46:16I'm done.
46:17Yeah.
46:18I'm done.
46:19You're up here.
46:20You're up here.
46:21You're up here.
46:23I'm done.
46:24In this super slow motion footage, we see how Mark's timing drops the towers perfectly,
46:43bringing down the towers with inches to spare.
46:54The camera nearest the towers records the ground vibration that radiates from the building and its destruction from the shockwave.
47:14Mark looks for damage to the nuclear reprocessing building beside the fallen towers.
47:18This came out eight, what, ten meters?
47:26Matt, this came out, this really went well.
47:30They walk past the shredded fabric and chain-link fencing.
47:33The air blast has blown the Harris fencing over.
47:37This is all air pressure.
47:39As the top of the tower came over, it came over in a round configuration, and then it collapsed.
47:44And as that collapsed, it sent a blast of air probably 80, 90 miles an hour out here, and it just took the fence, spun it over.
47:52The base of the tower now sits in the former catch basin.
47:57The legs have been sheared off by the explosions, but the protective fabric appears to be intact.
48:04It's contained the flying rubble.
48:09Mark studies the height of the standing pieces.
48:11The only thing we're looking for is that we don't have these lower sections that are leaning out where, if they fell,
48:17they could go outside the demolition site, which is the Harris fencing line that we have here.
48:21See any problems releasing this to the demolition boundary?
48:26Mark confirms the standing portions of the walls pose no threat to the surrounding nuclear reprocessing building
48:31and are within reach of conventional demolition equipment, which will continue to clean.
48:36Looking at the drop zone, Mark is pleasantly surprised by the distance the towers fell.
48:48I'd say I'm 10 to 13 meters beyond what I thought the towers would let me do,
48:55which means the slots that we put in, the rotational velocity was faster than I had hoped it would be,
49:01so it's even better, moved farther than I expected, so today is a win. It's good.
49:10Mark releases the site back to Sellafield Limited, who are relieved that it's all over.
49:17Absolutely awesome. Just so emotional, so emotional.
49:22I just can't believe that we've finally done it. Absolutely fantastic.
49:27Team of sentries, I've got 60 sentries all over the site.
49:30They're all absolutely fine. Still in their positions at the moment.
49:33Exclusion zone is still in place, but so far looks like a job well done.
49:37Another great job. On to the next one.
49:40And the next one, and the next one.
49:42And the next one.
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