This is how you demolish a nuclear power plant German-style.
以下是拆除核电站的德国式操作。
No big red button.
没有大红键。
No dramatic countdown.
没有紧张的倒计时。
No "kaboom!"
也没有“轰隆”巨响！
The engineers who brought down a disused power plant on the River Rhine last week did so without an explosion. Instead they used robots to gently collapse it like a house of cards.
上周，工程师们拆除了莱茵河上一座废弃的发电厂，但没有发生爆炸，相反，他们用机器人轻轻地把它像纸牌屋一样拆掉了。
Or at least, as gently as you can flatten an 80-meter (262-foot) concrete cooling tower.
或者至少，是用最温柔的方式轻轻地把一个80米(262英尺)高的混凝土冷却塔压平。
The tower was part of the Mülheim-Kärlich power plant, which was in operation for just over a year in the 1980s.
这座塔是马尔海姆-卡利希发电厂的一部分，该发电厂曾在20世纪80年代运营了一年多。
The plant was shut down in 1988 following licensing issues and concerns about the risk of earthquakes in the area.
由于许可证问题和对该地区地震风险的担忧，该核电站于1988年关闭。
The hefty task of dismantling began in 2004.
这项艰巨的拆除任务于2004年启动。
Germany decided to phase out all its nuclear power plants in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in 2011.
在2011年日本福岛核灾难发生后，德国决定逐步淘汰所有核电站。
And it's also planning to close all its coal power plants by 2038 in an effort to cut its greenhouse gas emissions, which are currently the largest in Europe.
德国还计划在2038年前关闭所有燃煤电厂，以减少温室气体排放，德国目前的温室气体排放量居欧洲之首。
That means there are likely to be many more such demolitions in the coming years.
这意味着未来几年可能会有更多这样的拆除活动。
Decades ago, Germany's power plants were a symbol of its engineering prowess.
几十年前，德国的发电厂曾经是其工程实力的象征。
Today the country has become a world leader in taking these complex buildings apart.
今天，德国在拆除这些复杂建筑方面已经成为世界的领导者。
In May last year, engineers began shortening what was then the 162-meter-tall cooling tower at Mülheim-Kärlich.
去年5月，工程师们开始拆除马尔海姆-卡利希当时162米高的冷却塔。
They attached a robot to the lip, and for the past year it's been munching its way down the building -— a bit like a caterpillar devouring a leaf.
他们把一个机器人安装在了塔顶，在过去的一年里它从顶上开始往下“吃掉”这座建筑——有点像毛毛虫吞吃一片叶子。
By June this year, the tower was half its previous height.
到了今年六月，这座塔已经只有以前一半高了。
Engineers still needed to finish the job.
剩下的工作仍然需要工程师们去完成。
But as project manager Olaf Day explained, they didn't have permission from authorities for an explosion, so instead came up with a different plan.
但是正如项目经理奥拉夫.戴解释的那样，他们没有得到当局的爆炸许可，所以他们提出了一个不同的计划。
The tower was supported by 36 V-shaped pillars.
这座塔由36根V型的柱子支撑。
Last week, the team of experts used a giant robotic "hammer" to weaken some of the pillars, and then another high-tech pair of "scissors" to cut them until the tower collapsed, said Day.
戴说，上周，专家小组用一个巨大的机器人“锤子”削弱了一些柱子，然后用另一把高科技“剪刀”剪断了它们，最后塔身倒塌。
"It was the first time in the world this demolition method has been used [on a nuclear plant]," he said, adding that the entire "hammer and scissors" process took just under four hours.
他说:“这是世界上第一次(在核电站)使用这种拆除方法”，还补充说这整套“锤子和剪刀”操作只花了四个小时。
There was another benefit to this unique method.
这座独特的方法还有一个额外的好处。
Explosives cause "huge amounts of dust that fly everywhere," explained Professor Miranda Schreurs, chair of environmental and climate policy at the Technical University of Munich.
慕尼黑工业大学环境与气候政策系主任米兰达·施瑞尔斯教授解释说，爆炸物会导致“大量的灰尘四处飞扬”。
The Mülheim-Kärlich tower, however, just "fell in on itself," producing minimal dust.
然而，马尔海姆-卡利希塔是“自己塌掉了”，产生的灰尘很少。
While the tower was not deemed radioactive, there's still an interest in "minimizing potential spread of any harmful materials," she said.
她说，尽管这座塔没有被认为具有放射性，但人们仍希望“尽可能减少任何有害物质的潜在扩散”。
For more than three decades, the cooling tower dominated the skyline in this small town in western Germany, the legacy of an era when the country generated around 30% of its electricity from nuclear power, according to Schreurs.
施鲁尔斯说，在过去30多年里，这座冷却塔一直占据着这个西德小镇的天际线，施鲁尔斯说，在那个时代，德国约30%的电力来自核能。
Back in the 1970s and early 1980s, nuclear energy was seen as a "sign of Germany's engineering prowess," Schreurs said.
施鲁尔斯说，早在20世纪70年代和80年代初，核能就被视为“德国工程实力的标志”。
But when the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in nearby Ukraine caused radioactive clouds to drift over western Europe, concerns about the safety of nuclear energy "took on a whole new dimension," she said.
但她说，当1986年附近的乌克兰切尔诺贝利灾难导致放射性云团飘过西欧时，对核能安全的担忧“呈现出全新的层面”。
Following the reunification of Germany in 1990, more Soviet nuclear plants in the former East Germany were decommissioned that "did not meet the West German safety standards," said Schreurs.
1990年德国统一后，前东德地区更多的“不符合西德的安全标准”的苏联核电站退役，施鲁尔斯说。
Germany has been cooling on nuclear power since 2000, but it was Japan's Fukushima disaster in 2011 that really swung the government into action.
德国自2000年以来一直在慢慢减少核能，但2011年日本福岛核事故才真正让政府行动起来。
Chancellor Angela Merkel quickly set new deadlines.
德国总理安格拉·默克尔很快设定了新的截止日期。
Of the country's 17 reactors, eight were immediately shut down.
在德国17座反应堆中，有8座被立即关闭。
The seven reactors still in operation today are due to close by 2022.
目前仍在运行的7座反应堆将于2022年关闭。
As the plants closed down, a new industry has emerged.
随着核电厂的关闭，一个新的产业出现了。
Even after a power plant shuts, "you still need people who are experts in radioactive materials, you still need people who know how to deal with the robots that operate inside nuclear facilities," said Schreurs.
施瑞尔斯说，即使核电站关闭，“你仍然需要放射性材料专家，你仍然需要知道如何处理在核设施内运行的机器人的人。”
That know-how could be exported to other countries.
这些技术还可以出口到其他国家。
There are about 450 nuclear power plants in the world, many of them approaching the end of their lifetimes.
世界上总共大约有450座核电站，其中许多已接近使用年限。
"So you're not going to have the same level of expertise as you have here in Germany," said Schreurs.
施瑞尔斯说:“因此，别处不会拥有和德国一样的专业水平。”
"That means Germany will probably play quite an important role in helping other countries to also deal with decommissioning."
“这意味着德国可能会在帮助其他国家解决核电厂退役问题上发挥相当重要的作用。”
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