Page 266 - Beyond Decommissioning

Experience and lessons learned 247

Fig. 6.39 The Vienna incinerator
chimney.
Photo by M. Laraia, 2018.

6.6.5 Cooling towers
Cooling towers have come to symbolize nuclear and nonnuclear power plants. Stand-
ing 100+ m tall with a unique hyperbolic profile, cooling towers are massive construc-
tions and finding a reuse after such a plant has been closed down is not easy. Quite
recently, some of these towers have exhibited a new side: they have become colossal
canvases on which an astonishing variety of art has been bestowed by celebrated
artists.
The prototypical cooling tower conversion is situated at the Wunderland Kalkar in
Germany, near the Dutch border. Kalkar was originally the SNR-300 NPP, which
never went online. In 1991, the Dutch entrepreneur Hennie van der Most purchased
the property and commenced to re-develop it into a hotel, meeting and leisure com-
plex. Leaving the reactor building and cooling tower in place, an amusement park was
opened in 2001. Wunderland Kalkar receives around hundreds of thousands visitors
a year.
The old cooling tower has the distinct shape that characterizes NPPs around the
world, with the addition of a large mural of a mountain landscape painted on it (beau-
tification of this kind seems a popular trend these days). The tower features a 58-m
high “Vertical Swing” and a climbing wall.
The park also features: four restaurants; eight bars; six hotels; a museum; four event
halls; a fitness center; tennis courts; mini-golf; bowling alleys; a go-kart track; and
beach volleyball facilities. See more detail in MNN (2013).