Unterweser nuclear power plant

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Unterweser nuclear power plant
Unterweser nuclear power plant
Unterweser nuclear power plant
location
Unterweser nuclear power plant (Lower Saxony)
Unterweser nuclear power plant
Coordinates 53 ° 25 '40 "  N , 8 ° 28' 49"  E Coordinates: 53 ° 25 '40 "  N , 8 ° 28' 49"  E
Country: Germany
Data
Owner: PreussenElektra GmbH
Operator: PreussenElektra GmbH
Project start: 1971
Commercial operation: September 6, 1979
Shutdown: 2011

Active reactors (gross):

0 (0 MW)

Decommissioned reactors (gross):

1 (1410 MW)
Energy fed in in 2010: 11,238 GWh
Energy fed in since commissioning: 307,054 GWh
Website: The nuclear power plant on the side of the operator
Was standing: 17th June 2018
The data source of the respective entries can be found in the documentation .
f1
Aerial view of the power plant in the middle of the Wesermarsch
The power plant of the Weser seen
Disused low-pressure turbine rotor in front of the power station

The Unterweser nuclear power plant ( KKU - also known as Kleinensiel nuclear power plant and Esenshamm nuclear power plant ) near Rodenkirchen and Kleinensiel , municipality of Stadland in the Wesermarsch district of Lower Saxony, was connected to the grid for the first time on September 29, 1978 with a nominal output of 1,410 MW . On March 18, 2011 at 3:33 a.m. as a consequence of the Fukushima nuclear disaster , it was initially temporarily taken off the grid (see nuclear moratorium ) and finally shut down a good two months later as part of the energy transition.

history

The pressurized water reactor was built by Siemens / KWU from 1972 to 1978 and went online on September 29, 1978. The reactor first went critical on September 16, 1978 . When it was commissioned, the reactor was the most powerful in the world. The operator of the KKU was then NWK , later PreussenElektra .

In the nuclear reactor of the nuclear power plant are 193 fuel assemblies . The KKU has an electrical output of 1410  MW (net output 1345 MW + 65 MW own consumption).

It is operated by PreussenElektra GmbH. The final shutdown of the KKU was set in the nuclear consensus of the red-green federal government under Gerhard Schröder to feed in the 311 billionth kilowatt hour. This roughly corresponds to a final shutdown in 2011, according to E.ON in 2012. Following the extension of the term of the CDU government under Angela Merkel, decided in autumn 2010, the nuclear power plant should run until 2020.

As a result of the debate about the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the Unterweser nuclear power plant was taken offline on Friday, March 18, 2011 at 3:33 a.m. after the German government decided in March 2011 to implement a three-month nuclear moratorium for older power plants . The operator E.ON Kernkraft GmbH had previously been instructed to do so by the Lower Saxony state government.

At the end of May 2011, the state and federal environment ministers decided to shut down the Unterweser nuclear power plant permanently.

The operating group E.ON announced on June 9, 2011 that the nuclear power plant would not go back into operation even without an express order from the federal government. The visitor center was closed at the beginning of 2013. Since then, the building has been used for internal purposes such as training and meetings.

safety

The dome is made of 80 cm thick reinforced concrete. It was designed for the fall of a starfighter ; this was the reference scenario for the strength of the concrete dome in the 1970s. “ According to a TÜV report from 1990, the concrete shell should withstand a crash of a ten-ton aircraft. According to a study by the Society for Plant and Reactor Safety, a large-scale destruction of the reactor building is to be expected in the event of the impact of a heavier body. A core meltdown with an open containment would be the result. “The Phantom II , which was produced from 1958 to 1981, had a maximum take-off weight of 26.3 t.

For comparison: A two-meter-thick shell was built in the Brokdorf nuclear power plant (project started in 1975).

Interim storage

An interim storage has been taken after nearly three years of construction time on 18 June 2007 at the nuclear power plant Unterweser as nationwide last site interim storage facilities in operation. The interim storage facility is designed for a maximum of 80 container spaces. The permit was limited to 40 years, starting with the first storage.

Incidents and technical problems

On the occasion of a turbine test during operation, the turbine shut down in 1998, which prevented the flow of steam to the turbine. Since the diversion station was not available, the non-radioactive secondary steam had to be blown off into the environment via pressure relief valves. It was found that one of the four valves had not opened. The reason was that the associated control line had been falsely shut off or no longer opened by a manual valve beforehand. Because of human error, the incident was classified as INES 2.

On July 22, 2007 it was found that a valve in one of the four lines of the emergency and after-cooling system was not correctly set. The cause was an incorrect adjustment of the electronic position indicator on the valve during the revision in 2006. This was not noticed until the inspection in 2007. In the event of an incident, the string would not have been able to provide the required cooling capacity.

radioactivity

Due to their operational nature, nuclear power plants discharge small amounts of radioactive substances (emissions) via exhaust air and wastewater. The Atomic Energy Act obliges the supervisory authorities, among other things, to monitor operations with regard to the permitted limit values. A corresponding overview for the KKU can be found on the website of the Lower Saxony Ministry for the Environment and Climate Protection.

The radioactivity measured in the air for 2004 is 3.8 TBq / a for all the radionuclides  and 14 TBq / a for the water (the amount of radioactive material released is indicated by its activity).

In the worst case , the radiation exposure calculated from the discharge of radioactive elements with the air was 0.2 µSv for an adult and  0.3 µSv for small children (also the thyroid dose ). In 2004, both adults and small children were exposed to a maximum dose equivalent of 0.1 µSv from the wastewater . For comparison: the average natural radiation exposure in Germany in 2004 was around 2100 µSv.

Protest actions

On June 22, 2009, around 3 a.m., the Unterweser NPP was occupied by around 50 Greenpeace activists. The demonstrators painted a stylized atomic symbol with a skull on the large dome of the power plant. Through this action, Greenpeace wanted to draw attention to what they considered to be the critical safety situation of nuclear power plants. According to its own statements, the operator E.ON noticed the intrusion of the activists on the premises; Since the intruders were clearly identified as environmental activists, E.ON refrained from clearing the dome and only prevented them from advancing into security-relevant areas.

On Easter Monday 2011 (April 25), around 8,000 people demonstrated at the power plant against nuclear power and for not switching on the Unterweser NPP, which had been shut down for three months due to the nuclear moratorium .

On May 21, 2011 Campact launched thousands of balloons from a 25 meter wide radioactivity sign in front of the Unterweser NPP . The balloons symbolize a radioactive cloud . The spread of the balloons demonstrates how radioactivity would spread inexorably in the event of a disaster . A card is stuck to each of the balloons; she asks the finder of the balloon to note the location on an Internet map.

Data of the reactor block

The Unterweser nuclear power plant consists of one power plant block :

Reactor block Reactor type net
power
gross
power
start of building Network
synchronization
Commercialization
of essential operation
switching off
processing
Lower Weser (KKU) Pressurized water reactor 1345 MW 1410 MW 07/01/1972 29.09.1978 09/06/1979 03/18/2011

Dismantling

The decommissioning and dismantling permit for the Unterweser nuclear power plant has been applied for. An information event was held on September 16, 2017. On February 5, 2018, the Ministry for the Environment, Energy, Building and Climate Protection in Lower Saxony issued the permit for decommissioning and dismantling. On February 21, 2019, the last fuel elements were removed from the reactor.

Web links

Commons : Unterweser nuclear power plant  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Lower Saxony Ministry for the Environment and Climate Protection: Status Information Kernkraftwerk Unterweser (KKU) , May 9, 2017, online at www.umwelt.niedersachsen.de, accessed on July 24, 2015
  2. ^ PreussenElektra: Unterweser power station , online at www.preussenelektra.de, accessed on July 24, 2017.
  3. Unterweser nuclear power plant is offline . NDR.de. March 18, 2011. Archived from the original on March 20, 2011. Retrieved on May 19, 2011.
  4. ^ NDR regional broadcast of March 18, 2011 ( memento of March 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) accessed in March 2011
  5. ^ Badische Zeitung: Countries want the end of 7 nuclear power plants
  6. Unterweser nuclear power plant remains offline. Retrieved May 13, 2020 . , Nordwestdeutsche Zeitung of June 9, 2011
  7. The North German: Atomkraftwerk-Unterweser-Eon-closes-the-visitor center
  8. a b radiobremen: The Unterweser nuclear power plant in Esenshamm, September 14, 2010 ( Memento from November 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  9. Chronicle ( memento of March 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), on eon-kernkraft.com, accessed June 29, 2011
  10. Annual report of the HSK from 1998, "Lehrliche Incendees"
  11. Breakdown series. Unterweser NPP reports a malfunction . On: spiegel.de, July 22, 2007.
  12. Monitoring of nuclear facilities
  13. Section II.1 .: Radioactive substances from nuclear facilities ( Memento from January 12, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  14. Annual report 2004. Environmental radioactivity and radiation exposure ( memento from February 20, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. Bonn 2005, p. 153f. (PDF).
  15. Summary ( Memento from January 11, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  16. Annual report 2004. Environmental radioactivity and radiation exposure ( memento from February 20, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. Bonn 2005, p. 13 (PDF).
  17. ^ Protest at the Unterweser nuclear power plant. Retrieved May 13, 2020 . . On: greenpeace.de.
  18. Unterweser nuclear power plant: Greenpeace occupies the reactor dome . On: welt.de, June 22, 2009.
  19. youtube.de
  20. Easter demo at the Unterweser nuclear power plant ( memento from May 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), on radiobremen.de
  21. Balloon Action ( Memento of 5 May 2011 at the Internet Archive ) called on campact.de, April 28th 2011
  22. Power Reactor Information System of the IAEA : "Germany, Federal Republic of: Nuclear Power Reactors" (English)
  23. Unterweser power station. Retrieved January 8, 2018 .
  24. preussenelektra.de: PreussenElektra receives approval for the decommissioning and dismantling of the Unterweser nuclear power plant ( memento of the original from July 8, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. from February 6, 2018 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.preussenelektra.de
  25. Dismantling in Kleinensiel Last Castor leaves the Unterweser nuclear power plant , on mobil-nwzonline-de.cdn.ampproject.org
  26. Report of the NDR from 2018: Dismantling of the Unterweser nuclear power plant | How does it work? (Accessed: May 13, 2020 on youtube)