Biblis Nuclear Power Plant

Biblis Nuclear Power Plant
Unit A, seen from South-West with two cooling towers
Country	Germany
Location	Biblis
Coordinates	49°42′36″N 8°24′55″E
Status	Closed since 18 March 2011
Construction began	1969
Commission date	August 25, 1974
Decommission date	2011
Operator	RWE
Nuclear power station
Reactor type	PWR
Reactor supplier	Siemens
Cooling towers	4
Cooling source	Rhine River
Power generation
Make and model	Siemens
Units decommissioned	1 x 1,255 MW 1 x 1,300 MW
Nameplate capacity	2,525 MW
Capacity factor	69.2%
Annual net output	15,306 GW·h
External links
Website	Site c/o RWE
Commons	Related media on Commons

The Biblis Nuclear Power Plant is in the South Hessian municipality of Biblis and consists of two units: unit A with a gross output of 1200 megawatts and unit B with a gross output of 1300 megawatts. Both units are pressurized water reactors. The operator of this power plant is the German RWE Power AG, an electrical utility based in Essen. 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 indefinitely for political reasons (Atomausstieg).

Biblis is the partner power station of the Balakovo Nuclear Power Plant.

Closure

Main article: 2011 shutdown of German nuclear reactors

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 indefinitely shut down, based on the later political phaseout decision (Atomausstieg).

Incidents

On December 17, 1987, an incident (INES 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 INES scale.

See also

• Anti-nuclear movement in Germany
• Nuclear power in Germany
• Vulnerability of nuclear plants to attack

Images

• 
  Biblis Nuclear Power Plant (Germany), block A (right) - block B (left)
• 
  Security measures on South site
• 
  Ref-flow from cooling towers into the Rhine river (unit A in the background)
• 
  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 vessels and steam generators were landed by ship.