Official name Kernkraftwerk Stade Location Bassenfleth Make and model Siemens Decommission date 14 November 2003 | Country Germany Status Closed Construction began 1967 | |
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Owner(s) E.ON (66.7%)
Vattenfall Europe (33.3%) Operator(s) Kernkraftwerk Stade GmbH
E.ON Address Bassenfleth 1A, 21680 Stade, Germany | ||
The Nuclear power station Stade (German: Kernkraftwerk Stade, KKS) operated from 1972 to 2003 in Bassenfleth close to the Schwinge river mouth into the Elbe river. It was the first nuclear plant shut down after Germany's nuclear phase out legislation and is currently undergoing the decommissioning process (Phase 2: Deconstruction of larger modules in the containment building).
Contents
The station is located at the left bank of the Elbe in Stadersand, a locality of Stade, to the west of Hamburg in Lower Saxony beside another shut down power station Schilling Power Station. The KKS was based upon a light water reactor.
History
The power plant was built by the Siemens company and started operation on May 19, 1972 shortly after having reached the first criticality on January 8, 1972. Between March, 1972 and November, 2003 the KKS supplied electrical power of 662 MW (internal) resp. 630 MW (external), as well as 1,892 MW thermal power. Until September 7, 2005, the power plant ran in "post-operational" mode, since then it is in "residual" mode.
During the 31 years of operation, 157 fuel elements have been consumed, since December 15, 1988 also fuel elements containing 4% uranium. Since 1984, the nearby saltern has been supplied with process steam. This was the first supply of thermal energy by a nuclear power station. On Friday, November 14, 2003, at 8:32 a.m. the Stade nuclear power plant has been shut down. The operating company E.ON officially assigned economical reasons, however, Germany's nuclear phase out act of 2000 surely provided also a political motivation.
Deconstruction
The power plant deconstruction is divided into 5 phases, which shall be completed until 2015.
On April 27, 2005 the last fuel cells have been moved away from the KKS. Nevertheless, the department of the environment of lower Saxony authorized storage of weak nuclear waste until 2046.
Consequences
After shutdown of the Stade nuclear power plant, the operation of the nearby saltern has been shut down also.
Meanwhile it is planned to construct a black coal power plant with almost the same power as the KKS. This requires extension of the harbour of Stade-Bützfleth with a coal terminal for 1.7 million t black coal.