nuclear-news

Construction on the plant began in 1965 and Beznau 1 began producing power on 1 September 1969, with Beznau 2 following in 1972. It has two pressurised water reactors (PWR) built by Westinghouse with a capacity of 365MW each, for a total capacity of 730MW and able to produce 6000 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of energy. The plant is owned and operated by Swiss private company Axpo Holdings.

Following its reopening four incidents were recorded at in 2018.

Protests and closure

Protestors in Switzerland have targeted Beznau in particular, and nuclear power in general. Following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011, 20,000 protestors gathered in the town of Doettingen to condemn Beznau in the largest anti-nuclear protest in the country for 25 years.

In 2014 100 Greenpeace activists broke into Beznau and scaled one of the buildings at the site with a banner proclaiming “the end” of nuclear power due to safety concerns for the ageing plant.

These concerns appeared to be well-founded in October 2015 when Beznau 1 was found to have 1000 holes, cracks and indentations around the reactor.

Beznau was closed for repairs when “anomalies” were found in its steam generators from March 2015 to March 2018.

The future of nuclear power in Switzerland

Despite still producing power and being one of five nuclear plants that form35% of Switzerland’s energy mix, Beznau and nuclear power itself is under threat.

Switzerland will instead develop renewable energy from wind, solar and hydropower as part of its Energy Strategy 2050 plan. Meanwhile there will be no new general licenses for nuclear power plants, but old plants like Beznau will continue to run until they are decommissioned…..https://www.power-technology.com/features/worlds-oldest-nuclear-power-plant/