Obrigheim Nuclear Power Plant (KWO) is a mothballed nuclear power plant in Obrigheim, Neckar-Odenwald-Kreis, on the banks of the

Neckar The Neckar () is a river in Germany, mainly flowing through the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, with a short section through Hesse. The Neckar is a major right tributary of the Rhine. Rising in the Schwarzwald-Baar-Kreis near Schwen ...

and owned by

EnBW EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG, or simply EnBW, is a publicly-traded energy company headquartered in Karlsruhe, Germany. As its name indicates, EnBW is based in the German state of Baden-Württemberg. History Foundation and development ...

. It operated a

pressurized water reactor A pressurized water reactor (PWR) is a type of 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 coolant (water) i ...

unit from 1969 to 2005. It has been defuelled since 2007, with spent fuel rods awaiting transport to an interim storage facility. In March 2017, EnBW tested the shipment of numerous castors by a barge on the Neckar to Neckarwestheim Nuclear Power Plant.

History 1959-2005

On May 5, 1955, the

Federal Republic of Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated between ...

, with the French occupation force, started to work in earnest towards peaceful use of nuclear energy. The district of

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...

and

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

were particularly interested in this development. In 1957 the ''Arbeitsgemeinschaft Kernkraft Stuttgart'' (AKS) group was created in Baden-Württemberg. The

minister-president A minister-president or minister president is the head of government in a number of European countries or subnational governments with a parliamentary or semi-presidential system of government where they preside over the council of ministers. I ...

and minister of the economics of Baden-Württemberg at the time, Hermann Veit took over the project of establishing a nuclear power plant, and looked towards the

Calder Hall Sellafield is a large multi-function nuclear site close to Seascale on the coast of Cumbria, England. As of August 2022, primary activities are nuclear waste processing and storage and nuclear decommissioning. Former activities included nuc ...

Gas cooled reactor A gas-cooled reactor (GCR) is a nuclear reactor that uses graphite as a neutron moderator and a gas (carbon dioxide or helium in extant designs) as coolant. Although there are many other types of reactor cooled by gas, the terms ''GCR'' and to a ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

for a design. In the spring of 1959, AKS chose an unusual reactor design: the organically moderated and cooled reactor (OMR). When the much smaller AEC demonstration facility at Piqua, Ohio suffered severe problems, they switched to a

light water reactor The light-water reactor (LWR) is a type of thermal-neutron reactor that uses normal water, as opposed to heavy water, as both its coolant and neutron moderator; furthermore a solid form of fissile elements is used as fuel. Thermal-neutron react ...

in 1962. The reactor was built with a US license and public funding, and went online in 1969. During the

2003 European heat wave The 2003 European heat wave saw the hottest summer recorded in Europe since at least 1540. France was hit especially hard. The heat wave led to health crises in several countries and combined with drought to create a crop shortfall in parts of S ...

, Obrigheim was shut down due to high water temperature in the river. It was shut down in 2005, having produced 90 billion kWh.

Decommissioning, 2005-present

Since 2005 the

owned nuclear power in Obrigheim has been in the process of decommissioning; the spent fuel rods have been in wet storage since 2007. The salient barrier is a missing final repository for the 342 highly radioactive fuel rods. Obrigheim had an interim storage facility between 1998 and 2007. For EnBW not to have to build one, the fuel rods needed to be shipped to the Neckarwestheim Nuclear Power Plant, which is about 40 kilometers away and still had space in its temporary storage. EnBW had considered transport by road, by rail and by barge. The former two options did not apply absent a nearby train connection, and road transport is complicated by single-lane roads through a densely populated area, where large-scale barriers would have to be made. Since both nuclear plants were built on the banks of the Neckar, barge transport appeared to be the preferred way in spite of the 23 bridges and six locks it must pass. Even the green environment ministry in Baden-Württemberg saw the waterway as the best solution, but the Bundesministerium für Umwelt had critics. For the first time in Germany´s history, highly radioactive waste was transported on a river. Protests against the castor transports on the river had been arising. About 650 people followed a call for the "Neckar castorfrei" campaign to protest and march as "a sign before the anniversary of the Fukushima disaster of March 11, 2011". The remaining waste water was evaporated.

Hardware features

Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F056652-0021, Kernkraftwerk Obrigheim (KWO)

The electric power was transported by a single power line to Hüffenhardt substation. The power line carried four circuits, two for 220 kV and two for 110 kV. The circuits for 110 kV were mounted on the lowest of the three crossbars of the pylons, and the circuits for 220 kV on the middle and the upper crossbar of the pylons. An unusual feature of the power line between the pylons is that insulators are mounted between the conductors to prevent short circuits by too close a conductor clearance with strong winds. To monitor radioactivity there were two meteorological towers, built as lattice steel masts. One of them was built in 1977/78 between the village of Asbach and Kirstätter Hof at 49 20 30 N and 9 02 47 E. In 2001, the 169 metres tall mast was demolished by explosives. A free-standing mobile phone transmission tower made of prefabricated concrete was built on its site. The other meteorological tower erected in 1962 is 99 metres tall, located close to the power plant, and still in use.

References

Bibliography

External links