Rainer Moormann (born 1950) is a German

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe th ...

and nuclear whistleblower. He grew up in

Osnabrück Osnabrück (; wep, Ossenbrügge; archaic ''Osnaburg'') is a city in the German state of Lower Saxony. It is situated on the river Hase in a valley penned between the Wiehen Hills and the northern tip of the Teutoburg Forest. With a population ...

. After finishing

highschool A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

he studied

physical chemistry Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic and microscopic phenomena in chemical systems in terms of the principles, practices, and concepts of physics such as motion, energy, force, time, thermodynamics, quantum chemistry, statistical mecha ...

Braunschweig Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( , from Low German ''Brunswiek'' , Braunschweig dialect: ''Bronswiek'') is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the Nor ...

and received a doctor's degree with Raman spectroscopic and theoretical investigations on

hydrogen bonds In chemistry, a hydrogen bond (or H-bond) is a primarily electrostatic force of attraction between a hydrogen (H) atom which is covalently bound to a more electronegative "donor" atom or group (Dn), and another electronegative atom bearing a ...

in liquids. Since 1976 he had been working at the

Forschungszentrum Jülich Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ here for short) is a national research institution that pursues interdisciplinary research in the fields of energy, information, and bioeconomy. It operates research infrastructures with a focus on supercomputers. Cu ...

, doing research on

safety Safety is the state of being "safe", the condition of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to risk management, the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk. Meanings There are ...

problems with

pebble bed reactor The pebble-bed reactor (PBR) is a design for a graphite-moderated, gas-cooled nuclear reactor. It is a type of very-high-temperature reactor (VHTR), one of the six classes of nuclear reactors in the Generation IV initiative. The basic desi ...

s (especially with the

AVR reactor The AVR reactor (german: Arbeitsgemeinschaft Versuchsreaktor) was a prototype pebble-bed reactor, located immediately adjacent to Jülich Research Centre in West Germany, constructed in 1960, grid connected in 1967 and shut down in 1988. It was ...

fusion power Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion, nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nucleus, atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, whi ...

and spallation neutron sources.

Papers

In 2008 Moormann published a critical paper on the safety of pebble bed reactors, which raised attention among specialists in the field, and managed to distribute it via the media, facing considerable opposition. In 2020, Moormann co-authored a paper that argued in favor of keeping the by then six German nuclear power plants running in order to reduce CO₂ emissions.

Whistleblower award

For doing this despite the occupational disadvantages he had to accept as a consequence, Moormann was awarded the whistleblower award of the

Federation of German Scientists The Federation of German Scientists - VDW (Vereinigung Deutscher Wissenschaftler e. V.) is a German non-governmental organization. History Since its founding 1959 by Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, Otto Hahn, Max Born and further prominent Nuclea ...

(VDW)Press statement of the VWD (in German)
official short version in English: http://ialana.net/uploads/media/Program_Whistleblower_Award_2011.pdf, unofficial English translation of the press release: https://euzicasa.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/presentation-of-whistleblower-award-2011_via-hintergrund/ and of the German section of the

International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms The International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) is an international non-governmental organisation headquartered in Berlin. It was founded in 1988 and seeks "to build and strengthen international legal efforts to ban the use a ...

(IALANA).

References

External links

''PBR safety revisited'' by Rainer Moormann, ''Nuclear Engineering International'', 1 April 2009 {{DEFAULTSORT:Moormann, Rainer 1950 births German whistleblowers German physical chemists 20th-century German chemists Nuclear safety and security Living people People associated with nuclear power Technical University of Braunschweig alumni Scientists from Osnabrück

Papers

Whistleblower award

See also

References

External links