Germany's nuclear power stations being taken apart

Map of 7 locations in Germany

Germany switched off its last reactors in April 2023, but the licences that matter now are the ones that let an operator take a reactor apart: each is issued by a state ministry under §7(3) of the Atomgesetz, and each covers work measured in decades rather than seasons. These are the sites where that work is under way or approved, from Würgassen, offline since 1994 and still being cleared, to Brokdorf, which only stopped generating at the end of 2021. The pins sit on the villages the plants are named after; the plants themselves are fenced industrial sites, not places to walk into.

Places in this collection

  • Kernkraftwerk Obrigheim — Germany's smallest commercial reactor at 357 MW gross, a first-generation Siemens design begun in March 1965 and in commercial operation fr…
  • Kernkraftwerk Brunsbüttel — The KWU Baulinie 69 boiling water reactor was off line from July 2007 and never restarted before its operating licence lapsed in the 2011 m…
  • Kernkraftwerk Würgassen — An AEG boiling water reactor on the Weser, in commercial operation from November 1975 and shut down on 26 August 1994 after a mean availabi…
  • Kernkraftwerk Unterweser — The 1410 MW second-generation KWU reactor came off the grid on 18 March 2011 under the nuclear moratorium and was permanently shut that Aug…
  • Kernkraftwerk Stade — A first-generation Siemens-KWU pressurised water reactor of 672 MW gross, built from December 1967 and in commercial operation from May 197…
  • Kernkraftwerk Brokdorf — Construction began on the Elbe marsh in January 1976 against some of the most sustained protest in West German history, and the reactor rea…
  • Kernkraftwerk Grohnde — The KWU Vor-Konvoi pressurised water reactor entered commercial operation in February 1985 and supplied around 15 percent of Lower Saxony's…

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