Gösgen nuclear power plant
| Gösgen nuclear power plant | ||
|---|---|---|
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| location | ||
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| Coordinates | 640055 / 246245 | |
| Country: | Switzerland | |
| Data | ||
| Owner: | Gösgen-Däniken AG nuclear power plant | |
| Operator: | Gösgen-Däniken AG nuclear power plant | |
| Project start: | 1973 | |
| Commercial operation: | Nov 1, 1979 | |
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Active reactors (gross): |
1 (1060 MW) | |
| Energy fed in in 2014: | 8,022 GWh | |
| Energy fed in since commissioning: | 264,174 GWh | |
| Website: | kkg.ch | |
| Was standing: | December 31, 2014 | |
| The data source of the respective entries can be found in the documentation . | ||
The Swiss nuclear power plant Gösgen (short: KKG or KKW Gösgen ) is located in the area of the community Däniken in the canton Solothurn an der Aare . The operator is the Gösgen-Däniken AG nuclear power plant. The plant went into commercial operation in November 1979.
investment
The KKG was the first 1000 megawatt class nuclear power plant in Switzerland. The gross nominal output was increased from the initial 970 MW through expansion projects (1992 to 990 MW, 1996 to 1020 MW and between 2009 and 2014 to the current value of 1060 MW gross). Through measures to improve efficiency, such as optimized blades on the high-pressure turbine, improved water separation after the high-pressure turbine, new cooling tower installations with better cooling effect and new low-pressure turbine rotors, it was possible to increase the electrical output to 1010 megawatts without changing the thermal output.
The heart of the power plant is a pressurized water reactor from the then German Kraftwerk Union (today Framatome GmbH ) with a thermal output of 3002 megawatts . In the reactor core there are 177 fuel elements with 205 fuel rods each , which consist of enriched uranium dioxide with fissile uranium-235 or MOX fuel elements (uranium-plutonium mixed oxide fuel elements) with a proportion of fissile plutonium . MOX fuel has not been used since 2012.
In contrast to Beznau I, II and Mühleberg, the cooling does not take place directly in the river water, but via a 150-meter-high natural draft wet cooling tower , so that the Aare is less stressed by the waste heat from the power plant.
Annual production in the Gösgen nuclear power plant is around 8 billion kWh , which corresponds to around 15 percent of Switzerland's electricity demand .
Almost 500 people are employed at the Gösgen power plant. The owners of the power plant are Alpiq Holding with 40 percent, the Northeast Swiss power plants with 25 percent, the Centralschweizerische Kraftwerke with 12.5 percent, the city of Zurich ( EWZ ) with 15 percent and the city of Bern ( EWB ) with 7.5 percent. Alpiq is responsible for the management .
Prime cost
The cost of generating one kilowatt hour in 1980 was 6.30 cents . Thanks to various modernization projects, these were reduced to 4.07 cents in 2001. For 2015, the operator puts it at 5.12 cents.
According to press reports, the production costs per kWh in 2016 were 4.5 cents. The wholesale price to be achieved is, however, only 2.8 (or 3.5) cents per kWh.
However, whether these stated values fully include the effective decommissioning and disposal costs is doubted on various occasions. B. by the Swiss Energy Foundation .
History and commissioning
At the end of the 1950s, Aare-Tessin AG (then Atel , today's name Alpiq ) bought a piece of land at the current location. In 1969 Atel announced the founding of a study consortium through the media, which would build a nuclear power plant near Gösgen. The location canton of Solothurn was involved as a co-owner of Atel. The cantonal government ex officio had two seats on the administrative board. In 1969 one of them was the later SP Federal Councilor Willi Ritschard .
Resistance arose to the project shortly after this first public announcement. The local council of the neighboring community of Schönenwerd turned to the Solothurn government - startled by a letter from a citizen and former nuclear engineer - and asked them questions about nuclear safety. This referred the municipality to the federal government that was responsible in their opinion. The responsible Federal Councilor Roger Bonvin replied briefly that the federal law of 1959 is obliged to take all measures to protect against ionizing radiation . The federal experts do not need to refresh their knowledge of the dangers in this area.
In 1970 Atel submitted an application to the federal government for a site permit. With the exception of Schönenwerd , all municipalities voted for the location. However, concerns were raised about the river water cooling, which was still planned at the time, which would have heated the Aare considerably. The opponents of the project believed themselves to be the winners when the federal government banned river water cooling in the same year.
In 1972 Atel published a report with a photo montage that showed a 150 meter high cooling tower on the planned site. Atel invited politicians from the region to study trips to the Ruhr area . In response to an interpellation by a concerned parliamentarian, the Solothurn government wrote in October 1972 that the construction of a cooling tower was hardly compatible with the naturalness and integrity of the area. The travel activity, however, bore fruit. The government also stated that modern cooling towers are in no way inelegant and do not have a disruptive effect on the perception of beauty.
Before construction starts had in the communities Däniken and Gretzenbach still zoning changes are made. Since the center of the village of Obergösgen is closer to the site than these two communities, the local council raised an objection to the rezoning. This objection was withdrawn at the end of November 1972 for no apparent reason. Months later, the minutes of the municipal council were made public, which showed that the council and in particular the municipal mayor had been put under massive pressure by Atel.
In November 1972 the building application was open to the public. There were numerous objections from individuals and groups, all of which were rejected. The building permit was granted on January 12, 1973. Although some opponents, however rekurrierten and the procedure was therefore not completed legally, drove in June 1973, the first construction on the grounds.
The Federal Council took the view that it was not the federal government who wanted to build, but the canton of Solothurn and Atel. The federal government only has to give its consent by law. He has no political say. The authorities would have to approve the project, provided it meets the safety-related framework conditions.
Nuclear power plant opponents then tried to remove the government council with a cantonal popular initiative . Since the responsible Willi Ritschard was elected to the Federal Council during this time, this counter-movement lost its force. The OPEC oil embargo at the time and the resulting oil crisis also weakened the opponents of the nuclear power plant. A campaign by the Swiss Atomic Energy Association (SVA) claims that nuclear power plants are the cleanest and most environmentally friendly way to generate electrical energy. It is safe, clean, indispensable and inexhaustible. The expected tax income also voted many people in the region in favor of nuclear energy.
In 1975 the non-partisan movement against nuclear power plants in Solothurn (ÜBA) was founded. She launched the initiative to uphold popular rights and security in the construction and operation of nuclear facilities and the national petition for a four-year construction ban on all nuclear power plants in Switzerland .
At the end of May 1977 the first protest march took place, the so-called Whitsun March . Around 10,000 people hiked to the Gösgen NPP site. In the following week the Swiss Action Committee against the Gösgen Nuclear Power Plant (SAG) was founded, which was supposed to coordinate the occupation of the NPP. On June 25, 1977, almost 3,000 opponents marched from Olten to Gösgen to occupy the driveways to the construction site. Around 1000 police officers from all over Switzerland came and stopped the demonstrators with tear gas . Two weeks later, an attempt to occupy around 6,000 people failed, with the police not only using tear gas this time, but also rubber shot and water cannons . The Solothurner Zeitung spoke of a "trial of the civil war". On September 28, 1978, five activists were fined for the actions.
At the end of September 1978 the power plant was completed. The responsible federal department, which was subordinate to the aforementioned Willi Ritschard, issued the commissioning license. Appeals against it were unsuccessful. On October 30, 1979, the NPP went into operation after a trial phase. In the attack on the meteorological mast of the Gösgen nuclear power plant on November 3, 1979, the meteorological mast of the power plant was blown up. The mast crashed onto the substation and switchgear of the power plant; the result was a major power outage in Switzerland. No one was harmed, the damage to property amounted to one million francs.
In May 1981 the Federal Council rejected all pending complaints and burdened the opponents with the procedural costs of 17,296 francs. However, the opponents had wrested the requirement from the authorities of submitting a project by 1985 that would guarantee safe disposal and final storage. Federal Councilor Ritschard made it clear that the power plant would otherwise have to be shut down. Ritschard died in 1983. The condition was overturned in 1985 with a series of legal subtleties. The NPP remained in operation and in the same year received the permit for an increase in output. There is currently no final repository for radioactive waste, which means that the total electricity generation costs remain unclear.
Accidents
On September 15, 2002, two suspects were arrested at Basel customs because they had put a map of the Gösgen nuclear power plant on their computer without being able to explain it plausibly - it could not be reconciled with their alleged travel route. "They are not terrorists, but rather precursors." said the federal police according to "Schaffhauser Nachrichten" and released the two men.
One incident in 2007 involved damage to a cladding tube of a fuel rod, which resulted in a slight amount of fuel being washed out.
On the evening of June 30, 2012, around 6:30 p.m., a defect in a diode led to a reactor shutdown . Steam that was not radioactive was released “visibly and audibly”. After the repairs, the reactor was restarted and electricity production resumed on July 1, 2012 at around 4:45 a.m. The ENSI classified the incident at level 0 of the INES a scale.
Due to the incorrect manipulation of an operator, two main steam line valves closed unplanned on July 13, 2015. This led to an emergency shutdown and again non-radioactive live steam was released into the environment as a result.
In August 2015, the power plant was disconnected from the grid due to a steam leak in the non-nuclear circuit in order to be able to carry out the necessary repairs. Since all other Swiss nuclear power plants were also out of operation for repairs or maintenance, Switzerland was temporarily free of nuclear power. The security of supply was secured by other power plants, especially hydropower plants , and in some cases there were even net electricity exports.
The Gösgen nuclear power plant went offline on July 26, 2019 after a turbine shutdown. The reason for the shutdown was a short circuit in the switchgear building.
New construction of the Gösgen 2 nuclear power plant
On June 10, 2008, it was announced that the Swiss energy company Atel intends to build a new nuclear power plant in Gösgen, directly adjacent to the existing power plant site. The new nuclear power plant is to be named " Niederamt nuclear power plant ", a light water reactor with an electrical output of between 1000 and 1600 MW and a 60 meter high hybrid cooling tower would be built. The construction costs are estimated at around CHF 7 billion.
An application for a general license has been submitted. This is the first step in the approval process. Both chambers of parliament would decide next. This step is subject to an optional referendum . The cross-party and cross-association alliance Stop Atom has already announced one of these. If accepted, the next step would be to obtain the building permit and then the operating permit. Objections can be raised against both.
The region around the KKG has so far been viewed as having a very positive attitude towards nuclear energy, less critical than, for example, the cantonal or the Swiss population as a whole. In May 2010 , however, the municipal council of the municipality of Dulliken, which borders on Däniken , even voted unanimously against another power plant unit. In the middle-class camp, arguments of landscape protection and impaired quality of life were decisive.
Due to the Tōhoku earthquake in 2011 with a magnitude of 9.0, Federal Councilor Doris Leuthard suspended all general license applications for new nuclear power plants. Up to now, earthquake resistance up to magnitude 7 was required, which according to Leuthard (or the ENSI analyzes ) all Swiss plants can comply with. Following the fundamental decision of the Federal Council on May 25, 2011 to phase out nuclear energy, it is no longer to be expected that the project will ever be implemented.
On October 12, 2016, Axpo , Alpiq and BKW jointly decided to withdraw the general license applications for replacement nuclear power plants that were submitted in 2008 and suspended in 2011.
Data of the reactor block
The Gösgen nuclear power plant has one block :
| Reactor block | Reactor type | net power |
gross power |
start of building | Network synchronization |
Commercialization of essential operation |
switching off processing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gösgen (KKG) | Pressurized water reactor | 1010 MW | 1060 MW | December 01, 1973 | 02/02/1979 | 11/01/1979 | So far unlimited |
See also
literature
- David Kieffer: "A monster for Niederamt?" Regional reactions to the nuclear power plant project in Gösgen, 1969–1975 . In: Yearbook for Solothurn History . tape 83 , 2010, p. 7–176 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-325269 .
Web links
- Website of the Gösgen nuclear power plant
- List of reportable incidents
- nuklearforum.ch, Swiss Association for Atomic Energy SVA, Basic Documentation - Nuclear Energy in Switzerland : History (1945 to 1999) ( Memento from March 2, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- Photo documentation "The anti-nuclear movement"
Individual evidence
- ^ SOGC: Gösgen-Däniken AG nuclear power plant. moneyhouse commercial register and company data, accessed on May 10, 2019 .
- ↑ ENSI : Supervision Report 2012, p. 55, and the following (printed versions)
- ↑ a b Alpiq puts dams up for sale. Handelszeitung , accessed on November 29, 2017 .
- ↑ Alpiq stops selling hydropower plants. Tages-Anzeiger , August 28, 2017, accessed November 29, 2017 .
- ↑ Susan Boos: Thank you, Atel! . In: woz.ch, Die Wochenzeitung, Switzerland, June 12, 2008
- ↑ SZ of June 29, 1977
- ↑ Greenpeace Switzerland: Swiss nuclear power plants in the crosshairs of terrorists? , accessed March 12, 2011
- ↑ Tagesschau : reactor of the Gösgen nuclear power plant shut down due to defect , June 30, 2012
- ↑ ENSI : Reactor shutdown in the Gösgen nuclear power plant , June 30, 2012
- ↑ ENSI: KKG: Reactor shutdown of June 30, 2012 due to incorrect triggering of reactor protection signals , January 25, 2013
- ↑ ENSI: 2015 Supervisory Report on Nuclear Safety
- ↑ Atomless through the night . In: Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen , August 17, 2015. Accessed on August 19, 2015.
- ↑ Requests for new nuclear power plants open up old trenches (NZZ online)
- ↑ General license submitted
- ^ Dulliken municipal council resolution
- ^ General license applications for replacement nuclear power plants suspended , NZZ, March 14, 2011
- ↑ Fundamental decision to phase out nuclear power , NZZ of May 25, 2011
- ↑ Power Reactor Information System of the IAEA : "Switzerland (Swiss Confederation): Nuclear Power Reactors" (English)
