system produced 308 megawatts of electricity. The waste heat from the THTR-300 was exhausted using a dry cooling tower. Incidents On May 4, 1986, just 6 months after it had been connected to the power grid, a fuel pebble became lodged in a fuel feed pipe to the reactor core. Consequently, some radioactive dust was released to the environment. The detection of this very small emission of helium (and dust?) would have not occurred, were it not for environmental groups closely monitoring radiation events in the neighbourhood, since this happened just a couple of days after the Chernobyl disaster. There was a zero tolerance feeling for nuclear incidents, no matter the scale. The Westphalia ministry of commerce created a fact finding committee. After a couple of weeks the power plant was switched on again, but the former supporters withdrew their backing. The reactor kept experiencing technical difficulties, with fuel elements breaking more often than anticipated. The fuel factory in Hanau was decommissioned for security reasons, endangering the fuel fabrication chain. It was decided on September 1, 1989 to shut down THTR-300, which was submitted to the supervisory authority by the HKG on September 26, 1989 in accordance with the Atomic Energy Act. From 1985 to 1989, the THTR-300 registered 16,410 operation hours and generated 2,891,000 MWh. 80 incidents were logged during its 423 full-load operating day lifetime. Decommissioning On September 1, 1989, the THTR-300 was deactivated due to cost and the anti nuclear sentiments after Chernobyl. In August 1989, the THTR company was almost bankrupted after a long period of shut down due to broken components in the hot gas duct. The German government bailed the company out with 92 million Mark. THTR-300 was in full service for 423 days. On October 10, 1991, the dry cooling tower, which at one time was the highest cooling tower in the world, was explosively dismantled and from October 22, 1993 to April 1995 the remaining fuel was unloaded and transported to the intermediate storage in Ahaus. The remaining facility was "safely enclosed". Dismantling is not expected to start before 2027. From 2013 to 2017, 23 Million Euro were budgeted for lighting, safeguarding and the storage of the pellets in the interim storage facility in Ahaus. As was determined in 1989, dismantling would begin after approximately 30 years in safe enclosure. Further development By 1992, a group of firms planned to proceed with