NEL (Pipeline)

52.61888.4963Koordinaten: 52 ° 37 '8 " N, 8 ° 29' 47" O

The NEL, short for Northern European gas pipeline (formerly North German gas pipeline ) is a natural gas pipeline, which runs over 440 kilometers from Lubmin on the Baltic coast in Mecklenburg- Vorpommern to Rehden in Lower Saxony. The NEL line connects next to the OPAL pipeline leading to the south the Nord Stream pipeline at its landfall in Lubmin near Greifswald with the existing national pipeline system. It derives from the large natural gas reserves in Russia directly to Germany and other Member States of the European Union, such as the Netherlands, Belgium, France and the UK. In her route takes you past the NEL Schwerin, Hamburg and Bremen.

Construction began in March 2011 and the pipeline took as planned 1 November 2012, the operation after just 15 months on, the gas first flowed due to residents complaints in an area at location and Winsen ( Luhe) with lower capacity via a redirect.

Indicators

The pipeline was an average of 18 meters long, 2.23 cm thick and 15 -tonne pipes, which have a diameter of 1.42 meters, welded together and buried in a trench with a meter earth cover. The pressure in the pipeline is up to 100 bar; the annual capacity of the line is more than 20 billion cubic meters, equivalent to about one-fifth of the total German energy demand.

Operators and shareholders

The planned investment for the pipeline project be approximately one billion euros. At the pipeline Kassel gas company Wingas with 51%, the Dutch Gasunie with 20%, the Belgian Fluxys hold a 19 % and E.ON Ruhrgas with 10 %. Gasunie has taken over 15 % of the E. ON Ruhrgas and 5% of the Wingas in June 2010; Fluxys acquired its 19 % stake in September 2011 by the Wingas.

Operator of the pipeline NEL Gas Transport GmbH, a 100 % subsidiary of the W & G Beteiligungs -GmbH (Holding Wingas ).

Course

The route of the NEL has a total length of 440 kilometers where 240 km through Mecklenburg -Vorpommern and 200 kilometers through Saxony. The NEL runs past where the Nord Stream pipeline in Lubmin on Hamburg and ends halfway between Bremen and Osnabrück located near Diepholz Rehden where the natural gas is stored and fed into the existing natural gas pipeline network.

Pipeline archeology

In Lower Saxony, the 200 km long pipeline route has been completely investigated archaeologically. These pedological care of the construction project was financed primarily by the operators of the pipeline to the polluter pays principle. The coordination of the archaeological measures up to 13 times the excavation team and over 100 employees took before the Lower Saxony State Office for Monument. Far to the lead time of the construction work continued from the end of 2010 a ten- months of continuous, hard prospecting one. This meant a six -meter-wide search interface on a length of 50 km in the area of archaeological suspected areas, and in the vicinity of known sites. The remaining 150 km of the route accompanied archaeologists and excavation technicians, by observing at 30 m width stripping the topsoil by a backhoe of the construction company. The systematic search on the assay strip a clear picture of several millennia old cultural landscape became apparent. Archaeological meant the pipeline a profit in several ways:

• New archaeological finds
• Representative insight into the archaeological soil archive in Northern Germany
• Assessment of the archaeological potential in certain areas

Overall, the pipe-laying offered an archaeological survey area of ​​7 km ². This was the largest archaeological project in Lower Saxony, which was one of the largest excavation projects in Europe.

The systematic archaeological investigations conducted on the pipeline route resulted in Niedersachsen so far to 134 sites with approximately 12,500 archaeological findings, including about 100,000 pottery shards from 12,000 years of cultural history in Lower Saxony, from the Stone Age to modern times. Only about 10 percent of the discovered archaeological sites were previously known, although archaeologists started from a rate of 25 percent based on years of experience. The most significant findings from the pipeline were presented in the years 2013 and 2014 in the Lower Saxony State Museum in Hanover.

Among the finds were:

• Retoucher of sandstone with an engraving showing a headless female body with indicated legs and pubic area. The approximately 5 x 7 cm stone was found near Bierden Achim at a camp of Stone Age hunter - gatherers as well. The female character was named as Venus of Bierden. The time of origin is not clear due to this rare Fundart in Northern Germany. It is assumed that the Mesolithic period, question could also penknife groups come from the Upper Paleolithic.

• Four grave sites of the single grave culture of the Neolithic period in Eydelstedt with grave goods, including a decorated ceramic pot and a tulip cup. It was in three cases originally to cairns, which could be seen from circular trenches.

• Gold hoard of Gessel as the most spectacular discovery in April 2011 Gessel. It consists of 117 gold jewelery with a total weight of 1.8 kg, are assigned to the youngest parts of the Middle Bronze Age.

• Settlement of the Late Bronze Age at Eydelstedt with smaller farm buildings for storage of agricultural products.

• Late Bronze Age grave sites at Heiligenloh, with two graves constituted by grave border as a long bed. At the site there were also younger settlement remains, such as posts and pits, from the Roman imperial period.

• Settlement of pre-Roman Iron Age Barnstorf with pits, ditches, hearths and post holes of earlier building. On an approximately 8,000 m² area over 600 archaeological evidence has been found. The place was inhabited apparently longer, since the superimposed timber post. Were economic basis of the settlement, for appropriate findings, seem to cereal cultivation and processing.

• Germanic burial ground with urn burials at Gessel from the Roman Iron Age of the 2nd and 3rd century on the edge of an earlier settlement. There were in the range investigated 76 burials and a further 60 points with cremated remains. The cemetery contained, among other things, a Roman bronze vessel ( Hemmoorer bucket ) as urn.

• Germanic riparian settlement from the 2nd to 3rd century AD when Eydelstedter district Atomized. The settlement site was already known by individual ceramic finds in drainage works in 1937. The newly discovered remains of settlements, including thousands of pottery fragments and a primer, lay on a terrain elevation near the Wagenfelder Aue at a silted river knees. Two glass beads found from the Roman empire are made in elaborate Millefiore art.

• Germanic village in Drentwede with langschiffigen Wohnstallhaus houses and granaries, pit houses, burial and Rennöfen for the smelting of iron.

• Golden finger ring with a blue bead from the 4th to the 7th century, which was found in Uphusen.

• Various medieval Dorfwüstungen and Wölbackerfluren.