__NOTOC__ The Biblis Nuclear Power Plant is in the South Hessian municipality of

Biblis Biblis is a municipality in the Bergstraße district in southern Hessen, Germany. Geography Location The municipality lies in the Rhine rift west of the Odenwald between Darmstadt to the north and Mannheim to the south; it also lies north of B ...

and consists of two units: unit A with a gross output of 1200

megawatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units, International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), ...

s and unit B with a gross output of 1300 megawatts. Both units are

pressurized water reactor A pressurized water reactor (PWR) is a type of light-water reactor, light-water nuclear reactor. PWRs constitute the large majority of the world's nuclear power plants (with notable exceptions being the UK, Japan and Canada). In a PWR, the primary ...

s. The operator of this power plant is the German

RWE Power AG RWE AG is a German multinational energy company headquartered in Essen. It generates and trades electricity in Asia-Pacific, Europe and the United States. The company is Europe's most climate threatening Company, the world's number two in offsh ...

, an electrical utility based in

Essen Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and D ...

. Unit A began operation on July 16, 1974 and entered commercial service on August 25, 1974; unit B reached criticality on March 25, 1976. Both units now are shut down definitely for political reasons (Atomausstieg). Biblis is the partner power station of the

Balakovo Nuclear Power Plant Balakovo nuclear power station (russian: Балаковская АЭС, Balakovskaya AES []) is located in the city of Balakovo, Saratov Oblast, Russia, about south-east of Moscow. It consists of four operational reactors; a fifth unit is still ...

Closure

In March 2013, the administrative court for the German state of Hesse ruled that a three-month closure imposed by the government on the Biblis A and B reactors as an immediate response to the Fukushima accident was illegal. The state ministry of the environment acted illegally in March 2011, when an order was issued for the immediate closure of the Biblis units. RWE complied with the decree by shutting Biblis-A immediately, however as the plants were in compliance with the relevant safety requirements, the German government had no legal grounds for shutting them. The court ruled that the closure notice was illegal because RWE had not been given sufficient opportunity to respond to the order. Nevertheless, the units are now definitely shut down, based on the later political phaseout decision (Atomausstieg).

Incidents

On December 17, 1987 an incident (

INES Ines or INES may refer to: People * Ines (name), a feminine given name, also written as Inés or Inês * Saint Ines or Agnes (), Roman virgin–martyr * Eda-Ines Etti (stage name: ''Ines''; born 1981), Estonian singer Places * Doña Ines, a vo ...

1) occurred: Operators overlooked a stop valve that had not been closed. In order to close the armature a valve was opened. The radioactive primary cooling water discharged for a short time into the annular space. Because the discharge of the reactor cooling water took place outside of the reactor containment, there was potentially no feedback from the sump over the safety cooling pumps. The incident became public one year later, when an article in an American technical periodical (''Nucleonic Weeks'') was published. There have been no other events higher than 0 on the

scale.

Images

Image:2011.03.26_001.JPG, Biblis Nuclear Power Plant (Germany), block A (right) - block B (left) Image:AKW_Biblis_03.jpg, Security measures on South site Image:AKW_Biblis_04.jpg, Ref-flow from cooling towers into the Rhine river (unit A in the background) Image:AKW_Biblis_06.jpg, Biblis Nuclear Power Plant is on the Rhine river. On the right side two cooling towers from unit A. In the background a ship landing place where heavy components such as

reactor vessel A reactor pressure vessel (RPV) in a nuclear power plant is the pressure vessel containing the nuclear reactor coolant, core shroud, and the Nuclear reactor core, reactor core. Classification of nuclear power reactors Russian Soviet era RBMK rea ...

s and

steam generators A steam generator is a form of low water-content boiler, similar to a flash steam boiler. The usual construction is as a spiral coil of water-tube, arranged as a single, or monotube, coil. Circulation is once-through and pumped under pressure, ...

were landed by ship.

References

{{Authority control Former nuclear power stations in Germany RWE 1969 establishments in West Germany Economy of Hesse

Closure

Incidents

See also

Images

References