Hambach surface mine

Bagger 293, previously known as the MAN TAKRAF RB293, is a giant bucket-wheel excavator made by the German industrial company TAKRAF, formerly an East German Kombinat.It owns and shares some records for terrestrial vehicle size in the Guinness Book of Records. Bagger 293 was built in 1995, one of a group of similar sized 'sibling' vehicles such as the Bagger 281 (built in 1958), Bagger 285 (1975), Bagger 287 (1976), Bagger 288 (1978), and Bagger 291 (1993). It is used in a brown coal mine near Hambach in Germany. It is called Bagger 293 by its current owner, RWE Power AG (the second-largest energy producer of Germany). It was called RB293 by its former owner, the brown coal company Rheinbraun, which in 1932 became a subsidiary of RWE. During an internal reshuffle in 2003 it merged with another daughter company to form RWE Power AG. Manufacturer TAKRAF generally refers to it as an excavator of the type SRs 8000.

Niederzier is a municipality in the district of Düren in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located approximately 10 km north of Düren, and 10 km south-east of Jülich.

Hambach Forest (German: Hambacher Wald, Hambacher Forst (German pronunciation: [ˈhambaxɐ ˈfɔʁst] ), Bürgewald, Die Bürge) is an ancient forest located near Buir in North Rhine-Westphalia, western Germany, between Cologne and Aachen. It was planned to be cleared as part of the Hambach surface mine by owner RWE AG. There were protests and occupations from 2012 against this, and in 2020 a law was passed to preserve it.

The Sophienhöhe (301.8 m AMSL) is the largest artificial hill worldwide, created by surface mining at the open cast lignite mine Tagebau Hambach operated by RWE Power AG in Düren (district), North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

Elsdorf is a town in the Rhein-Erft-Kreis, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated approximately 5 km south-west of Bergheim and 27 km west of Cologne.

The LVR-Cultural Centre Village Synagogue Rödingen (German: LVR-Kulturhaus Landsynagoge Rödingen) is located in Rödingen, municipality of Titz, district of Düren, State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is a permanent exhibition in a former synagogue and a former family house of the head (Vorsteher) of the local Jewish community. It is dedicated to Jewish Life in rural Rhineland of past and present. Today the Rödingen synagogue is the only Jewish house of worship in the western Rhineland still largely in its original condition. In 1999 the Landschaftsverband Rheinland (LVR), a assembly of municipalities, bought the entire property with the intention of opening the buildings to the public. The Cultural Centre was opened in September 2009, the European Day of Jewish Culture.

Merzenich is a railway station situated at Merzenich, Kreis Düren in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia on the Cologne–Aachen railway. It opened on 29 April 2003 with the S-Bahn tracks. It has an island platform and a large commuter parking area. It is served by Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn lines S13 between Sindorf or Düren and Troisdorf and by S19 between Düren and Hennef (Sieg), Blankenberg (Sieg), Herchen or Au (Sieg). Together these provide two services an hour to Cologne on weekdays and Saturdays and once an hour on Sundays and public holidays. It is classified by Deutsche Bahn as a category 5 station.

Arnoldsweiler is a village in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. It is part of the town Düren, situated between Cologne and Aachen. Its population was 3,185 in 2017.

Düren (German pronunciation: [ˈdyːʁən]) is a Kreis (district) in the west of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Neighboring districts are Heinsberg, Neuss, Rhein-Erft-Kreis, Euskirchen and Aachen.

The AVR reactor (German: Arbeitsgemeinschaft Versuchsreaktor) was a prototype pebble-bed reactor, located immediately adjacent to Jülich Research Centre in West Germany, constructed in 1960, grid connected in 1967 and shut down in 1988. It was a 15 MWe, 46 MWt test reactor used to develop and test a variety of fuels and machinery. The AVR was based on the concept of a "Daniels pile" by Farrington Daniels, the inventor of pebble bed reactors. Rudolf Schulten is commonly recognized as the intellectual father of the reactor. A consortium of 15 community electric companies owned and operated the plant. Over its lifetime the reactor had many accidents, earning it the name "shipwreck." From 2011 to 2014, outside experts examined the historical operations and operational hazards and described serious concealed problems and wrongdoings in their final 2014 report. For example, in 1978 operators bypassed reactor shutdown controls to delay an emergency shutdown during an accident for six days. In 2014 the JRC and AVR publicly admitted to failures. Its decommissioning has been exceptionally difficult, time-consuming and expensive. Since the original operators were overwhelmed by the effort, government agencies took over dismantling and disposal. In 2003 the reactor and its nuclear waste became government property. The temporary storage of 152 casks of spent fuel has been a controversy since 2009. The approval expired in 2013, because stress tests could not sufficiently demonstrate safety; no permanent solution has been reached. Since 2012 plans to export the casks to the United States have been considered due to the extremely high disposal expenses. In 2014, a massive concrete wall to protect against terrorist plane crashes was to be built. On July 2, 2014, the Federal Environment ministry issued an evacuation order for the temporary storage.AVR was the basis of the technology licensed to China to build HTR-10 and the HTR-PM, which became operational in 2021.

Merzenich is a municipality in the district of Düren in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located approximately 4 km north-east of Düren.

Buir is a railway station situated at Kerpen, Rhein-Erft-Kreis in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia on the Cologne–Aachen railway. It was opened in 1841 with two platform tracks at an island platform and a passing track. A malt factory located next to the station formerly had a siding. It was rebuilt in 2002 with the construction of the S-Bahn tracks and has two side platforms north and south of the S-Bahn tracks. The northern side platform is separated from the mainline tracks by a noise barrier. Access to the northern platform is via an underpass. It is served by Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn lines S13 between Sindorf or Düren and Troisdorf and by S19 between Düren and Hennef (Sieg), Blankenberg (Sieg), Herchen or Au (Sieg). Together these provide two services an hour to Cologne on weekdays and Saturdays and once an hour on Sundays and public holidays. It is classified by Deutsche Bahn as a category 5 station.