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Sep 22, 2009, 15:34 GMT

Last East German reactor is hauled away

Lubmin, Germany - The last electricity-generating nuclear power reactor built by communist East Germany was hauled out of its power station Tuesday, bound for a safe storage site nearby. The pressure vessel, which weighs 210 tons, operated from 1979 to 1990 in a heavily guarded site in remote woods at Lubmin on Germany's Baltic coast. With the fall of communism, the vast site and its four Soviet- built VVER 440 reactors were declared too unsafe to keep operating. Hundreds of workers employed by the government-owned company Energiewerke Nord (EWN) have spent two decades dismantling the plant. Reactor No 4, which still emits radiation, has been encased in a steel coffin with 13-centimetre-thick walls. The entire 360-ton load will be driven away Thursday to safe storage elsewhere on the station site so it can spend decades 'cooling off.' East Germany had two power stations and both closed in 1990. In the west of Germany, 17 reactors at 12 power stations still have licences to operate, but they must close about 10 years from now under legislation passed because of public disquiet. Many EWN staff, such as chief engineer Christian Rohde, 61, helped build the reactors, but said they did not feel sad to see them go. 'I haven't got time to think about that,' said Rohde.

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