The Leibstadt Nuclear Power Plant (german: Kernkraftwerk Leibstadt, KKL) is located near
Leibstadt
Leibstadt is a municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the district of Zurzach (district), Zurzach in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Aargau in Switzerland.
History
Leibstadt is first mentioned about 1240 as ''Leibesteit''. In the 13 ...
, canton of
Aargau, Switzerland, on the
Rhine River
), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland
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and close to the border to Germany. Commissioned in 1984, it is the youngest and most powerful of
the country's four operating reactors.
Its
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable en ...
built
boiling water reactor
A boiling water reactor (BWR) is a type of light water nuclear reactor used for the generation of electrical power. It is a design different from a Soviet graphite-moderated RBMK. It is the second most common type of electricity-generating nu ...
produces 1,220 MW of electrical power. The nuclear power station has produced approximately 8.5
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per year, slightly less than the power station
Gösgen.
It is owned by Leibstadt AG (KKL), a consortium of six Swiss energy companies: the Aare Tessin AG for electricity (Atel) with 27%, the northeast power stations AG (NOK) with 23%, the central-Swiss power stations AG (CKW) with 14%, the electricity company Laufenburg AG (EGL) with 16%, the Bern power stations AG (BKW FMB energy AG) with 10% and the Aargauer of power stations AG (AEW energy AG) with 5%. The management was originally done by the EGL, but with establishment of the Axpo it was consolidated within the Axpo group, so whereby today the NOK is the manager. The plant also houses a 380 kV switchyard for
Beznau.
Planning for the KKL began in 1964 for a 600 MW reactor. The
Swiss Federal Council
The Federal Council (german: Bundesrat; french: Conseil fédéral; it, Consiglio federale; rm, Cussegl federal) is the executive body of the federal government of the Swiss Confederation and serves as the collective head of state and governm ...
opposed direct cooling by river water, replaced in the design in 1971 with a
cooling tower
A cooling tower is a device that rejects waste heat to the atmosphere through the cooling of a coolant stream, usually a water stream to a lower temperature. Cooling towers may either use the evaporation of water to remove process heat an ...
. During further planning the output was increased to 900 and then 1200 MW. In the wake of the 1979
Three Mile Island accident
The Three Mile Island accident was a partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island, Unit 2 (TMI-2) reactor in Pennsylvania, United States. It began at 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979. It is the most significant accident in U.S. commercial nuclea ...
new safety regulations were implemented, delaying completion for several years. The 2 billion
Swiss franc construction budget spiraled to over 5 billion before the plant opened in 1984 after eleven years of construction.
With the installation of a new low pressure turbine in 2010 Leibstadt achieved an increase of 40 megawatts. A new 420 Tonne generator,
the heaviest
AIL to be carried on Switzerland's roads, has significantly improved the power plants performance.
The history of the completion of the KKL reflected increasingly critical attitudes toward
nuclear power in Switzerland
Nuclear power in Switzerland is generated by three nuclear power plants, with a total of four operational reactors ''(see list below)''. In 2013, they produced 24.8 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity, down 5.8% from 2007, when 26.4 TWh w ...
during the 1970s and 1980s, which culminated in the resistance against the
Kaiseraugst Nuclear Power Plant.
Nuclear events
Gallery
File:Leibstadt Kernkraftwerk im Bau ETH-Bibliothek Com LC1237-001-003.tif, in construction
File:Leibstadt Nuclear Power Plant.jpg, Aerial view
File:2011-05-10 18-57-46 Switzerland - Wil.jpg
File:Klingnauer Stausee 2003 04 05.jpg
File:P1100097-a-redu.jpg
See also
*
Nuclear power in Switzerland
Nuclear power in Switzerland is generated by three nuclear power plants, with a total of four operational reactors ''(see list below)''. In 2013, they produced 24.8 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity, down 5.8% from 2007, when 26.4 TWh w ...
*
Anti-nuclear movement in Switzerland
In 2008, nuclear energy provided Switzerland with 40 percent of its electricity, but a survey of Swiss people found that only seven percent of respondents were totally in favor of energy production by nuclear power stations. Many large anti-nuc ...
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Nuclear power stations in Switzerland