Gundremmingen B nuclear reactor offline

Germany has closed the Gundremmingen B nuclear reactor in Bavaria, leaving the country with seven reactors to be shut down by the scheduled nuclear exit at the end of 2022. Since starting operation in 1984, the reactor had produced about “330 billion kilowatt hours of electricity CO₂-free”, the operator, Kernkraftwerk Gundremmingen GmbH, wrote in a press release. To start the decommissioning process, used fuel rods will now be taken from the reactor and transported to a temporary storage site. German acting environment minister Barbara Hendricks welcomed the shut down: “The nuclear exit in Germany is taking an important step with this,” she said. The minister added that nuclear power had been a “wrong track” technologically, because faultlessness and low-cost energy had remained unfulfilled promises.

Read the press release in German here.

For background, read the CLEW factsheet The history behind Germany's nuclear phase-out and the dossier The challenges of Germany’s nuclear phase-out.