Bavarian Isar 2 nuclear unit gets dismantling permit, minister regrets shutdown

The Bavarian ministry has issued a permit to dismantle and decommission another shut-down nuclear unit. Specifically, it is Isar 2, with a capacity of 1410 MW, one of the last units to generate electricity in Germany. The minister expressed regret at the start of dismantling work, saying the unit had supplied just under a fifth of the federal state’s electricity consumption with low-emission power and could have remained in operation for at least another 10 years.

German company PreussenElektra announced that it had obtained the necessary approval to dismantle the Isar 2 nuclear unit from the Bavarian Ministry of the Environment and Consumer Protection. The company submitted the required application in 2019, and its approval comes less than a year after the unit was shut down. Isar 2, with a capacity of 1410 MW (net), generated electricity from 1988 until 15 April last year. It was among the units that generated electricity until the very last day this was permitted in Germany.

“Seven of our eight nuclear units are now in the dismantling phase. Drawing on the experience gained from these dismantling projects and our fleet-wide optimized approach, we will ensure that dismantling at the Essenbach site is completed by the end of the 2030s. The power plant site will then be available for new uses,” said Guido Knott, CEO of PreussenElektra.

Technicians have already removed all 193 fuel assemblies from the reactor core and placed them in the spent fuel pool. At the beginning of this year, the primary cooling circuit was decontaminated.

The first dismantling work planned by PreussenElektra involves removing the main cooling circuit pumps and separating the main cooling pipes from the reactor pressure vessel. This will be followed by dismantling the reactor pressure vessel internals.

“We have prepared very intensively for this moment, and we will now devote ourselves fully to dismantling both Isar units,” said site manager Carsten Müller.

Dismantling of the first unit, which ceased operation in 2011, is also under way at the Isar site. PreussenElektra says the work to dismantle it is roughly halfway complete.

Was shutting down nuclear power a mistake?

The Bavarian Ministry of the Environment and Consumer Protection also published a press release in connection with the permit to dismantle Isar 2. In it, Minister Thorsten Glauber says the federal government was wrong to shut down prematurely a nuclear unit that supplied 18% of Bavaria’s electricity consumption. This was particularly concerning given the inadequate development of renewables and the replacement of the capacity taken offline with fossil-fuel sources.

“The future belongs to renewable energy. But we are not there yet. In light of today’s global challenges, we need every kilowatt-hour of energy we can generate ourselves. Isar 2 could still be producing affordable, emissions-free electricity in Bavaria. It is incomprehensible why the federal government did not accept this and instead relies primarily on more coal, needlessly taking one of the safest and most reliable nuclear power plants in the world off the grid. A unit in its prime has to be dismantled after just 35 years of operation. That is like sending a perfectly healthy 50-year-old into retirement,” Glauber said, expressing dismay at the end of nuclear power in Germany.