The EU also released a plan in the past week to accelerate the deployment of both nuclear and renewable energy. This oil shock is going to have lasting impacts.
https://energy.ec.europa.eu/publications/accelerateeu-energy...
Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants
31–40 of 1001 posts
Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants
#32Strictly: France will no longer decommission Belgium's nuclear power plants, as Belgium will buy them. The current owner Engie are majority-owned by the French government. Apparently there also used to be a phaseout policy which is being rescinded: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/other/belgium-and-czechia-ram... I'm not keen on new nuclear (time and cost as much as anything else), but it's a terrible idea to phase out…
> I'm not keen on new nuclear (time and cost as much as anything else), but it's a terrible idea to phase out operating nuclear plants which are still safe and within their planned lifetime. This is pretty much the summary of the whole discussion. Building new nuclear is a debate, seeing as renewables are dirt cheap it might or might not make sense to build new nuclear reactors that take a fuckton of money and many y…
The West built the existing rector fleet cheap and fast in the past, and those reactors have proven to be safe and reliable and maintainable.
It’s a proven technology with decades decades in service.
We actually don’t know m any of the long term risks and unintended consequences of providing wind / solar + batteries at scale.
What rational is there to scrap the one and mandate the other?
Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants
#33Strictly: France will no longer decommission Belgium's nuclear power plants, as Belgium will buy them. The current owner Engie are majority-owned by the French government. Apparently there also used to be a phaseout policy which is being rescinded: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/other/belgium-and-czechia-ram... I'm not keen on new nuclear (time and cost as much as anything else), but it's a terrible idea to phase out…
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Humankind should depopulate, we cannot sustain infinite growth and are already destroying our planet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_overpopulation
Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants
#34Strictly: France will no longer decommission Belgium's nuclear power plants, as Belgium will buy them. The current owner Engie are majority-owned by the French government. Apparently there also used to be a phaseout policy which is being rescinded: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/other/belgium-and-czechia-ram... I'm not keen on new nuclear (time and cost as much as anything else), but it's a terrible idea to phase out…
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> And the West is also largely not keen on producing new humans (time and costs as much as anything else).
In my state the immediate costs to parents for raising a kid up to the age of 18 are around eight median gross incomes with the opportunity costs usually estimated about as high. This means having a kid loses parents around one quarter to one third of their total lifetime income. That's before even considering environmental factors. I don't think there's a decision an average person can make that's more ecologically destructive than having a child.
Having kids is a financial and ecological disaster. As an outside observer it's remarkable to me people are still having any kids at all, which speaks to the strong subjective factors overpowering whatever objective considerations one might have about it.
Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants
#35This doesn't seem like a terribly great idea, for several reasons. Belgium is nearly bankrupt, with a government deficit that the EU is already giving us grief for, in spite of some of the highest tax rates in the world. That same government hasn't exactly managed any of its semi-public companies particularly well: the national telco is for shit, postal service is nearly bankrupt, railways are mismanaged and underfun…
It's fine to shit on things but I have service almost everywhere and I take the train often with usually few issues aside from works on the tracks. Let's not blow up issues, it takes away from what we should focus on.
Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Renewables (especially wind) are mostly more variable. I have lived in a country that was reliant on hydroelectricity and the consequences of a drought were severe (literally days of power cuts, water cuts because of the lack of power...). Part of the solution was to build coal and oil power. Surely nuclear is better than coal?
I'm no expert but I believe the problem there is that you can only vary the power output of a nuclear reactor by very little. Essentially, it's either on or off, and is therefore not able to provide the flexibility needed for power outages, since only some of the generators might be offline, not necessarily all of them. Whereas you can vary the output of a coal or gas plant by a lot, simply via using different amount…
No not at all. You can vary reactor output, its generally as simple as pulling rods in or out. But they cannot just turn on and off. That takes a ton of time and effort.
Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm no expert but I believe the problem there is that you can only vary the power output of a nuclear reactor by very little. Essentially, it's either on or off, and is therefore not able to provide the flexibility needed for power outages, since only some of the generators might be offline, not necessarily all of them. Whereas you can vary the output of a coal or gas plant by a lot, simply via using different amount…
No not at all. You can vary reactor output, its generally as simple as pulling rods in or out. But they cannot just turn on and off. That takes a ton of time and effort.
Huh, I don't know where I read that their output can only be at 100% then.
Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants
#38I just want Belgium to go all-in on renewables, we [already have a pretty good electricity production make-up](https://statbel.fgov.be/en/themes/energy/electricity-product...) but we're still [too dependent on oil](https://www.iea.org/countries/belgium/energy-mix).
Hopefully the current energy crisis is a wake up call.
Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants
#39This doesn't seem like a terribly great idea, for several reasons. Belgium is nearly bankrupt, with a government deficit that the EU is already giving us grief for, in spite of some of the highest tax rates in the world. That same government hasn't exactly managed any of its semi-public companies particularly well: the national telco is for shit, postal service is nearly bankrupt, railways are mismanaged and underfun…
> Belgium is nearly bankrupt
can anyone jumpstart me on this, since when is belgium bankrupt?
Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
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> And the West is also largely not keen on producing new humans (time and costs as much as anything else). In my state the immediate costs to parents for raising a kid up to the age of 18 are around eight median gross incomes with the opportunity costs usually estimated about as high. This means having a kid loses parents around one quarter to one third of their total lifetime income . That's before even considering…
> This means having a kid loses parents around one quarter to one third of their total lifetime income.
There's no better investment.