Centrale Nucleare di Niederamt – Wikipedia

The Centrale Nucleare di Niederamt (KKN) It was a nuclear power plant proposed in Switzerland to be located in the canton slab at Däniken, Gretzenbach and Niedergösgen. He should have arisen a short distance from the Gösgen plant, from which he would have depended on the operations of normal operation.

It was expected that a hybrid type of refrigeration tower would be provided, that is, with artificial pulling and reduced height, this would have implied an energy consumption (about 1% of the production of the plant) but would have allowed to have a much lower visual impact , 60 m instead of 150 of a normal tower.

On 9 June 2008 the Niederamt AG Kernkraftwerk (KKN), a project company of Atel Holding AG, today Alpiq Holding, presented the demand for maximum authorization for the new nuclear power plant at the Federal Office of Energy. ^[first]

This is the first step of the license procedure for a new nuclear power plant in Switzerland. The request for maximum authorization consists of six documents: the report relating to internal safety, the environmental impact relationship, the relationship relating to safety for influences from the outside, the disposal certification, the conception for deactivation or phase closing the system and the relationship on conformity with the planning of the territory.

The general authorization is issued by the Federal Council. After the natural catastrophes that occurred in Japan, who caused accidents to the reactors of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, on March 14, 2011 the federal councilor Doris Leuthard suspended the procedures concerning the general authorization applications for the replacement of existing nuclear power plants. ^[2] The suspension, at first considered valid until the end of the analysis of the causes of the accident occurred in Japan and the safety standards of the Swiss nuclear power plants, instead became definitive on 25 May 2011, when the Federal Council decided the blocking of the construction of new planned reactors. ^{[3] [4]}

Following the popular vote of March 21, 2017, the construction of new nuclear power plants in Switzerland is prohibited ^[5] and the promoting company has been put into liquidation. ^[6]

There were no specific systems underlying the request for maximum authorization submitted. It starts from a generic nuclear power plant, chosen from the nuclear power plants available today of the third generation with light water reactors (pressurized water or boiling water reactors), without already defining a type and manufacturer in this phase. The detailed data are relevant only for the construction application, which can be submitted after obtaining the maximum authorization.

At the base of the presentable application there are two categories of power: 1100 megawatt and 1600 megawatts.

The exact dimensions, the orientation and positioning of the reactor building, the machine room and the cooling tower inside the project area have never been established. As an approximate size for a reactor building, it starts from a height of about 75 meters. The size of the plant are equal to about 130 × 180 meters.

The cooling would have been carried out through a hybrid cooling tower without fumes and about 60 meters high. The construction costs were estimated from about six to eight billion Swiss Franks, i.e. four to six billion euros. ^[7]