Breeder Duck

This special duck is brooding in Peter Faulhaber’s garden. It is crafted from high-quality stainless-steel piping once used to arrange nuclear fuel pellets geometrically inside a reactor fuel element. The sculpture bears the inscription “Deutsches Brüter Ende” — German Breeder End — a play on words rooted in the Baden dialect, which mutes the hard “t” in the word for “duck” — Ente — into a “d.” Peter Faulhaber had been employed at the Nuclear Research Center since the 1960s, with his work always closely tied to the fast-breeder reactor project. For many years, this reactor was seen as a beacon of hope because it was designed to generate most of its own fuel during operation — effectively “breeding” it. For decades, the Center conducted extensive research into how a fast-breeder reactor works and how it could be built and controlled. In 1972, based on the Center’s findings, construction began on a fast breeder reactor in Kalkar on the Lower Rhine. Although the plant was completed in 1985, it never became operational. In the wake of the Chernobyl disaster in April 1986, political leaders at both the state level in North Rhine-Westphalia and the federal level decided to abandon the billion-dollar facility. This marked the end of the new breeder technology in Germany, including the reprocessing of nuclear fuels, despite the enormous investment put into its development. The fast breeder project at the Nuclear Research Center was shut down in 1989 and transferred into a new nuclear safety research initiative. The Center’s breeder test reactor was permanently shut down in 1991. For many of the Research Center’s employees, the discontinuation of breeder technology represented a profound loss, effectively devaluing their lifework. The project’s demise had to be personally and professionally reconciled. Near the end of his career, Peter Faulhaber was tasked with taking the superfluous materials used for breeder-fuel-element construction to a disposal company. From this company, he acquired a small quantity of the high-quality stainless-steel parts for his own use. With these materials, he created various technical solutions for his home and garden, including the brooding duck nestled in an honorary wreath of ivy. kn