World News for Students of English

20-05-2020 15:00

The cooling towers at the site of a former nuclear plant in southwestern Germany have been demolished.

A series of explosions took place at the Philippsburg power plant near Karlsruhe, and the timing of the demolition was kept in secret. Officials feared of potential crowds gathering at the site during the coronavirus pandemic.

The plant’s two reactors were shut down in 2011 and 2019, as a part of Germany’s efforts to transition from nuclear energy. The country’s last reactor is set to go offline at the end of 2022.

The site’s clearance is expected to take until 2029, and it will involve the removal of 500,000 tons of concrete and metal. A transformer station will be built on the site of the towers. It will help bring electricity generated from renewable resources in northern Germany to the country’s south.

Difficult words: reactor (a part of a nuclear plant where a nuclear reaction takes place), transformer station (a part of electricity distribution system that helps to transform the electrical current from high to low or from low to high), renewable resources (natural resources that have an endless supply, such as example solar or wind energy).

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