Leibstadt Nuclear Power Plant

Active reactors ( gross ):

The nuclear power plant body city, short KKL, located on the territory of the municipality abdomen city (Canton Aargau, Switzerland ) on the Rhine near the Aare River estuary and the German border near Waldshut -Tiengen. It is the most powerful and also the last to be built so far in Switzerland nuclear power plant.

Plant

A boiling water reactor from General Electric with 1,275 MW of electrical gross output is used to generate electricity, cooling is provided by a 144 -meter-high natural draft wet cooling tower. The nuclear power plant produces about nine billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year, which is slightly ahead of the second major Swiss Gösgen.

Holdings is the powerhouse of the nuclear power plant Leibstadt AG ( KKL). At the Company are six Swiss energy company involved: Alpiq AG with 27.4 percent, Alpiq Suisse SA with 5 percent, Axpo Power AG with 22.8 percent, the Central Swiss power stations AG (CKW ) with 13.6 percent, the Axpo Trading AG (formerly EGL) with 16.3 percent, the Bernese power stations AG (BKW FMB Energie AG ) with 9.5 percent, and the AEW Energie AG with 5.4 percent. The management had originally held the EGL, the areas of responsibility were the foundation of Axpo Holding consolidated within the Axpo Group, which today Axpo Power AG holds the management. They also concerned the transfer of energy to Laufen castle and Beznau on the 380 kV voltage level.

The nacelle is painted turquoise on one side, on the other (see photo above ) are orange rectangles to see, corresponds to the Fibonacci sequence whose surface sequence.

History

The nuclear power plant body city is an old project: planning began in 1964 on the basis of a 600 - MW plant with river water cooling. The prohibition of river water cooling by the Federal Council in 1971, a solution was needed with cooling tower. In the further course of planning we increased the capacity of 600 MW to 900 MW. 1984 could start operating the facility after eleven years of construction. After the reactor accident at Three Mile Iceland in 1979, new safety regulations had become adopted, which delayed completion by several years. Instead of the budgeted two billion francs at the end of the power plant cost about 4.8 billion.

The history of the completion of the KKL reflects the increasingly critical attitude towards nuclear energy in Switzerland during the 1970s and 1980s, which culminated in the dispute over the nuclear power plant project Kaiseraugst.

Incidents

On August 11, 1995 at 8.22 clock a hydrogen explosion occurred in Leibstadt during the audit work. Two employees suffered third-degree burns. The fitters wanted in the nacelle check a part of the auxiliary steam system. They opened a lid on one of the containers; it came out of hydrogen, which ignited. In normal operation, located in the affected system steam coming out of the reactor and is therefore contaminated. The accident took place in the non - nuclear part of the plant.

On 28 March 2005, the power plant has been shut down due to a ground fault in the generator. During the early revision there was a fault of the INES level 1 On September 2, the plant went back to the grid.

In 2007, the Leibstadt reported to the federal Nuclear Regulatory three incidents. While the supervisory authority, the Department for Nuclear Safety Inspectorate (HSK ), two of the incidents having regarded as an event with little or no safety significance, they classified the reactor scram due to faulty triggering of the automatic depressurization system on 6 March 2007 on the INES level 1 as disorder, that is, a deviation from the permissible areas for the safe operation of the plant.

At the annual revision of 2010, an incident (INES -2), in which an employee contaminated by the hand, and the annual dose limit for Hands has been exceeded occurred.

Protests

The nuclear power plant body city was repeatedly the scene of protests:

On March 29, 1998 sealed Greenpeace activists at the site of the power plant a prepared for shipment transport containers and occupied the loading crane. Greenpeace called on the nuclear power plant Leibstadt AG ( KKL) to waive the current transport in and out from reprocessing, since Switzerland is guilty do with the export of spent fuel at the nuclear contamination of the sea and the surroundings of the reprocessing plant at La Hague.

On 13 November 2000, Greenpeace held on the factory track with a vigil to protest against the transport of nuclear waste from body City to La Hague. Shortly before the protest had been taken by the Swiss Federal Prosecutor initiated a criminal against the KKL and the competent authorities.

On 13 March 2003, Greenpeace activists climbed among other things, the cooling tower and unfurled a banner reading " No need ." At the action, around 60 activists from eight countries that were invaded on the factory premises involved. With their protest on the cooling tower and the fire made ​​her aware that Switzerland is the same amount of electricity exported abroad, such as produce it the NPP body city or the oldest Beznau and Muhlenberg together.

Data of the reactor units

The nuclear power plant body has a city block: