Initially foreseeing a river water cooling, the blueprints had to be modified in order to meet a new federal regulation that in 1971 forbade such systems for future plants.

Despite the accident at the Lucens Nuclear Power Plant, the debate mostly regarded technical aspects such as the construction of facilities in densely populated areas or the cooling system.

[2] With the submission of the construction request in 1972 numerous formal oppositions were presented by groups and individuals at federal, cantonal, and communal level.

In the meantime the oil crisis and the resulting awareness of the need of an energy mix diversification decreased the resistance to nuclear power.

The continual strong opposition to the KKG induced the federal authorities in 1980 to call a hearing about the plant safety.

[6][7] The Chernobyl disaster rekindled the opposition to nuclear power, which led in 1987 to a cantonal initiative for shutting down the KKG.

Except for the 10 year building suspension for new plants of 1990, approved by the 52.5%,[8] the same fate has been reserved by the cantonal population to all other federal initiatives proposing anticipated shutdowns or moratoria.

[9] In 2007 the cantonal parliament entrusted the government to act in order to promote the building of a new plant in the Niederamt region, between Olten and Aarau.

The output coolant achieves 36 °C and is therefore transferred to the 150 m tall natural draught wet-type cooling tower that returns it to the initial temperature.

In case of fast loss of the coolant, six accumulator tanks with a total 3·100% redundancy would flood the reactor until the low-pressure injection pumps could start operation.

If the coolant is lost from the secondary loop the feeding of the three steam generators would be entrusted to the four strands of the emergency feedwater system (one each and a reserve) with a total redundancy of 2×2·100%.

In case of extreme failures, for example a Station Blackout, the cooling would be assured by the two strands of the special emergency feedwater system.

The plant possesses an independent, bunkerised emergency building which purpose is, in extreme cases as plane crashes or explosions, to manage the reactor shutdown and the removal of the decay heat for at least ten hours.

[12] The plant is operated by an ad hoc privately held company called Kernkraftwerk Gösgen-Däniken AG.

The stocks are shared by the Alpiq Group (40%), the Axpo AG (25%), the city of Zurich (15%), the Centralschweizerischen Kraftwerke (12.5%), and the Energie Wasser Bern (7.5%).