I took a slight detour from my usual commute today to rubber-neck at the Hartlepool nuclear power station. The plant crops up from time-to-time in my everyday work, especially (as well you might imagine) when discussing emergency planning.

Hartlepool’s plant produces about 3% of the UK’s electricity, and is already 3 years or so past the end of its designed lifespan. It’s been given permission to operate until 2019, by which time it’ll be a decade “out of date”. Permission has been given for it to be replaced by a more modern variant, but with the Government’s nuclear policy looking a little confused at the moment, goodness knows whether that will actually happen.

This station is especially interesting as it’s one of the world’s nearest nuclear plants to a residential area: Seaton Carew, the small but attractive seaside town where John “canoe-man” Darwin faked his own death, is little more than a mile away.

The Beeb has some interesting photos from inside the power station; or, if Teesside industry is your thing, you might want to see my photo from yesterday.

This is the prilling tower that’s part of the former ICI plant at Haverton Hill, in Stockton-on-Tees. Prilling is a process I heard about in GCSE chemistry, yet I never quite believed it was true.

Essentially, a chemical (ammonium nitrate in this case) is melted and pumped to the top of the tower, and then released in drops which cool and solidify as they fall, resulting in handy little balls of solid ammonium nitrate to use as fertiliser. It’s reminiscent of the shot towers of the 18th century, and it’s a little bit remarkable that such an early industrial technique is still a common way of producing something.

I know that fertiliser is still made at Haverton Hill, but I’m not sure whether the prilling tower itself is still operational. I suspect it probably is, as most of the big industrial sites surrounding it are clearly still active.

My 100th photo is of the war memorial in Lincoln. It stands in St Benedict’s Square in the city centre.

I tried to take a picture if the Stonebow, which was built in the 16th century and marks the position of the original Roman gate allowing access to the south of the city. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a disaster, not least as I took it from the back:

Still, it’s the 100th day of the year, and my 100th photo-a-day, so I must be doing something right!

The Swan Inn in Horning, where I had my lunch today with Wendy, my mum and dad, sister, brother-in-law, and three nephews. The frontage says it was built in 1897, but the website claims it dates back rather further. Either way, the food and company were good!

Today’s photo shows some boats moored on the Norfolk Broads near Wroxham, and some houses nearby. I’m carefully trying to avoid the killer shrimp while I’m here, of course!

This is the central dome atop the Meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield. Today marked my first ever visit to Meadowhall, and I wasn’t totally won over: it struck me as a little bit dark and cramped. There were plenty of free parking spaces, suggesting it wasn’t full to capacity; it must be a nightmare with Christmas crowds!

Everyone else pitched baby carrots as an antidote to junk food. Where Crispin came out was almost the exact opposite. We want to be junk food.

This article from Fast Company describes a fascinating and (at least initially) successful approach to marketing carrots. I think it provides some interesting food for thought for public health people, like me.

It’s not actually full moon until tomorrow night, but we’re not far off, and the bright moon above Newcastle is creating an eerie atmosphere this evening.

This is “Cook’s Earth”, Andrew Burton’s globe and sextant sculpture outside the South entrance to the James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough, where I had a meeting this morning. I also did a few of my medical school rotations here.

It, of course, commemorates everybody’s favourite 18th century Middlesborian*, the seafaring discoverer of Australia. The globe used to be more clearly globe-like, with a blue sea, but that seems to have washed off. A replica of his most famous ship is down the road in Stockton, as I showed back in January.

James Cook’s violent death is captured in a famous Zoffany painting; so perhaps it’s appropriate that the hospital named after him is leading the country as a regional specialist trauma centre. Although, given the number of areas in which the hospiral’s highly respected, it’s hard to think of a mode of death for Captain Cook that would preclude me from drawing a tenuous link…!

*Marton, where James Cook was born and his eponymous hospital stands, was actually considered a village in Yorkshire in the 18th century, rather than a suburb of Middlesbrough, so I guess whether or not he was Middlesborian is a bit of a philosophical question!

It might not be immediately obvious from the picture, but it was snowing fairly heavily when I took this shot! Luckily, the snow doesn’t seem to be lying, at least so far. It’s quite a change from the sunny weather of last week!