Today 17% of the world’s electricity comes from nuclear power plants. Right now 14 countries are building a total of 6 nuclear power stations, some in an effort to reduce CO-emissions, others because they find it a cheap alternative to other, saver methods to create electricity. France is even making a profit from selling nuclear electricity! That’s something that won’t happen in Austria, but 30 years later than expected the only nuclear power plant in the country now for the first time ever sent electricity down its cables. Yet it’s guaranteed to be save….

What happened? In 1971 the construction was approved by then chancellor Bruno Kreisky. Zwentendorf in Lower Austria was the first of three planned locations for reactors. The project cost about 400 000 000 Euro, and was built by Siemens AG between 1972 and 1978. The Austrian company VOEST produced the containers. All Austrian countries were willing to accept the nuclear energy, and in fact they had pushed the chancellor to sign for it. But things turned out quite differently.

On November 5th 1978 the Austrian people voted against its start-up in a plebiscit (just over 50% were against it) and it was never turned on. Until its final shut down in 1985 it cost about 1 billion Euro (mainly maintenance)!
This referendum led to a change in law: the new ‘Atomsperrgesetz’(1978) which will never allow another nuclear power station in Austria without the consent of the people. It has been reformed in 1999 and is now part of the Austrian constitution.

The unused power station has been host to a police academy, a secondary school, been used for spare parts, as setting for movies and between 1999-2002 the Nuke music festival was held there. It also became quite convenient for the army as a training ground. To provide for energy needs a coal power station was built in 1987 nearby using the cables already there.

But on June 25th 2009 finally the lights went on at Zwentendorf power station!
It all started when the EVN (energy/electricity company) bought the site in 2005 and then invested 1 200 000 Euro… in about 1000 solar panels that now produce energy for at least a 1000 homes (180 MWh/a). 300 P.V. modules are integrated in the original building, whilst about 700 cover the outside area!

So, after more than 30 years Austria was able to finally turn on the ‘nuclear power plant’ Zwentendorf, which is in fact the only one of its kind that poses no thread whatsoever for people and environment.