Nuclear waste disposal in Karlsruhe
The Nuclear Disposal Karlsruhe GmbH (abbr. KTE ) until February 7, 2017 reprocessing plant Karlsruhe asset retirement limited liability company (TEC GmbH) , previously Society for the reprocessing of nuclear fuel limited liability and reprocessing plant Karlsruhe mbH , was a German nuclear plant for the reprocessing of nuclear fuel . The pilot plant , which is currently being dismantled, was in operation between 1971 and 1990. It is located around 12 kilometers north of Karlsruhe , in the municipality of Linkenheim-Hochstetten , in the vicinity of the Karlsruhe nuclear research center in Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen .
KTE operates the largest interim storage facility in Germany.
history
Until about the end of the 1980s, the declared political goal was to build a reprocessing plant to close the nuclear fuel cycle in Germany . As a preliminary stage for an industrial plant, a pilot plant was built in Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen near Karlsruhe , in which the essential process steps were to be tested and optimized.
To this end, several companies in the chemical and nuclear industry founded the Society for the Reprocessing of Nuclear Fuels (DWK) in 1964. On behalf of the Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center , this company took over the planning, construction and operation of the Karlsruhe reprocessing plant (WAK), which went into operation in 1971.
The plant had a capacity of 35 t per year with 200 operating days per year with an enrichment of up to 3% U-235 equivalent .
The digestion of the fuel elements was carried out in the chop-leach process , the uranium / plutonium separation in two cyclic PUREX process with 30% tri-n-butyl-phosphate in n- dodecane . Between the commissioning and the end of the disintegration operation in 1990, 208 t of irradiated nuclear fuel were processed and over 1 t of plutonium was separated. The entire plutonium separated in the WAK corresponds to the energy content of 1.5 million tons of hard coal with a 70% fissile portion.
In 1990, practically at the same time as the Wackersdorf reprocessing plant project was abandoned, the WAK was finally shut down.
In 1996 and 2003 the interim storage facility was expanded.
At the beginning of August 2016, the construction of two further interim storage buildings began, which should be completed by 2020.
Dismantling
The approx. 60 m³ of highly radioactive liquid waste (HAWC, English high active waste concentrate ) with an activity of 700 trillion Becquerel , which accumulated during the 19-year period of operation, was constantly cooled to 25 degrees in stainless steel tanks. They had to be integrated into glass ( glass canisters ) for temporary storage on site . For this purpose, a system, the Karlsruhe Vitrification Facility (VEK) , was built at the Karlsruhe location from 1999 to 2005. Commissioning began in 2005, and from April 2007 the system ran in cold test mode. The vitrification of the waste, which began on September 16, 2009, was completed by the end of 2010.
The aim is to dismantle the WAK to a “ green field ” by 2021–2023 . To finance the decommissioning, the DWK and the federal government each set aside EUR 0.5 billion, which had been used up at the end of 2005. The operator estimates the total costs of decommissioning and dismantling at € 2.6 billion (as of 2007). Further decommissioning is now the responsibility of the federal government and the state of Baden-Württemberg; DWK contributes to a certain extent to the costs of waste treatment. Since 2006 the WAK has been a 100% subsidiary of the state-owned company Energiewerke Nord .
Plutonium affair 2001
In the second half of 2000, a man from a company in Speyer, who was working on the dismantling of the plant, stole a small tube with residues containing plutonium and a contaminated wipe. He brought these items to his apartment, which radioactively contaminated both these and three cars. His partner, her daughter and he himself received an increased dose of radiation . In mid-2001 radioactive substances were detected in the 47-year-old man in the course of a routine examination, whereupon an examination of his private apartment was ordered. A preliminary arrest warrant was issued against the 47-year-old on suspicion of having released ionizing radiation. The decontamination of vehicles and apartments as well as the subsequent disposal cost 2.2 million euros, of which the WAK and the Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Center paid 1.7 million euros and the State of Rhineland-Palatinate paid half a million euros. This incident was classified as a reportable incident with reporting category N and on the International Rating Scale for nuclear incidents as an incident in level 2.
See also
- Jülich reprocessing plant (JUPITER - Juelich Pilot Plant for Thorium Element Reprocessing)
- Wackersdorf reprocessing plant (WAW)
swell
- ↑ About us. Kerntechnische Entsorgung Karlsruhe GmbH, accessed on February 27, 2017 .
- ↑ DER SPIEGEL 5/2008: Expensive disposal . Page 17.
- ↑ Koelzer, Winfried: Lexicon for nuclear energy . Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe 2008, ISBN 3-923704-32-1 , p. 172 ( PDF; 5.8 MB ( Memento of the original from January 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. ). Retrieved November 14, 2009.
- ^ HDB Karlsruhe. (No longer available online.) Nuclear waste report, Arbeitsgemeinschaft Schacht KONRAD eV, December 7, 2016, archived from the original on February 28, 2017 ; accessed on February 27, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Warehouse expansions. Kerntechnische Entsorgung Karlsruhe GmbH, accessed on February 27, 2017 .
- ↑ The glazing system is put into operation . ka-news.de. September 16, 2009. Retrieved November 14, 2009.
- ↑ Graphic for dismantling on the operator's side ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Stephan Lüke, Tagesspiegel: 2.2 million euros for a small tube of plutonium ( German ) April 7, 2005. Accessed November 25, 2014.
- ↑ Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety: Reportable events in facilities for nuclear fuel supply and disposal, Annual Report 2001 ( German , PDF; 285 kB) pp. 7–8. July 9, 2002. Archived from the original on January 23, 2012. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved May 14, 2014.
literature
- Winfried Koelzer: Lexicon to nuclear energy . Karlsruhe 2001, ISBN 3-923704-32-1
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 6 ′ 36.4 ″ N , 8 ° 26 ′ 3.8 ″ E