Heysham’s Power

Submitted by Alan Marsden on Mon, 10/06/2019 - 07:08

At Heysham, on the Lancashire coast, one may walk close by the two power plants there, which house advanced gas-cooled nuclear reactors. Hailing from the area, we used to joke that it was sited at Heysham as its proximity to the Irish coast persuaded the IRA not to blow it up. The combined Heysham 1 & 2 reactors have a generating capacity of 2400 MWe, providing enough energy to run 5 million homes, equivalent to around three cities the size of Birmingham. This is 3.86% of the UK’s total electricity supply.

While I was admiring this closely guarded but wonderfully powerful feat of human engineering, the dark clouds parted to reveal the sun. This great star is constantly undergoing nuclear fusion reactions, combining hydrogen atoms to form helium atoms. Incredible energy is released, rendering our sun a huge nuclear reactor, many times more powerful than our biggest man-made power stations. Furthermore, our sun, though measuring a staggering 864,000 miles in diameter, is dwarfed by other stars such as Betelgeuse, whose diameter is 766,772,051 miles across. Wow. Just think how much power and energy so gigantic a star can produce.