Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants • Hacker News Board

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#51

Post by __alexs » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 1:28 PM UTC

formerly_proven wrote: post #34

nandomrumber wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> 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…

Having kids is pretty far down my priority list but like, there's more to life than earning money.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#52

Post by enricotal » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 1:28 PM UTC

ramesh31 wrote: post #4

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#53

Post by piokoch » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 1:29 PM UTC

The most important question is: who the hell decided to do such a stupid thing and in the name of what. When we have an answer maybe we can look on other ideas the same people figured out and also rethink them.

Say, sorting thrash. EU new idea is to make Europeans to sort thrash into 12 separate beans. So what that all trash goes through sorting process before being dumped, and there are very modern and efficient sorting robots that use AI, etc. that can do sorting much better than any human.

So, maybe, just maybe it is better to invest more into new technologies, instead of turning Europeans into wastes sorting machines.

And this is only one more example where EU countries are doing something plain idiotic, nevertheless, like in the great Buñuel's movie "The Exterminating Angel", nobody is able to admit that there is something stupid going on and it is enough to open the doors and walk away.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#54

Post by cogman10 » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 1:29 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #2

Strictly: 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 Apparently there also used to be a phaseout policy which is being rescinded: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/other/belgium-and-czechia-ram...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.

Funnily, I have almost the opposite view. I'm terrified of old nuclear because those first gen power plants are all missing a lot of safety lessons. Nuclear disasters happen at old plants.

I want old nuclear plants to be either upgraded or decommissioned. I have much less concern about new nuclear (other than it taking a very long time and an a lot of money to deploy).

A healthy social attitude to nuclear would be to require periodic upgrades or decommissions as the plant ages.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#55

Post by JumpCrisscross » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 1:30 PM UTC

ramon156 wrote: post #39

elric wrote: post #24

This 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?

> since when is belgium bankrupt?

It's not.

Belgium is rated investment grade by all three agencies [1]. The cost to insure its debt implies a [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_credit_ra...

[2] https://www.worldgovernmentbonds.com/cds-historical-data/bel...

[3] https://www.worldgovernmentbonds.com/cds-historical-data/uni...

[4] https://www.imf.org/en/-/media/files/publications/cr/2025/en...

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#56

Post by nokz » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 1:30 PM UTC

formerly_proven wrote: post #34

nandomrumber wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> 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 (rational) attitude is why state pensions need to have a strong correlation with the number of children you parent until they complete secondary schooling -- there needs to be a financial payoff for the time, effort and money invested; those children are the ones financing the state pensions.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#57

Post by NeutralForest » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 1:30 PM UTC

formerly_proven wrote: post #34

nandomrumber wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> 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…

> 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.

Absolutely insane take imo. You do you man.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#58

Post by UltraSane » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 1:30 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #2

Strictly: 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…

A nuclear reactor can generate 1 billion watts of very low CO2 electricity for 60 years.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#59

Post by Y-bar » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 1:30 PM UTC

derektank wrote: post #41

notachatbot123 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humankind should depopulate, we cannot sustain infinite growth and are already destroying our planet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_overpopulation

There’s more forested land in Europe today than there has been since the middle ages

Almost half of which is monocultural plantations and not actual _forests_.

That’s about as ecologically true as calling a bunch of crop fields grasslands.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#60

Post by ZeroGravitas » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 1:31 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #6

pjc50 wrote: post #2

Strictly: 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…

Shutting down at the intended end of life is a third decision point.

New renewables are approaching the marginal running cost of nuclear that is still within their intended life span.

It would need to be shown that an expensive refurb is better than running it down efficiently while building out new renewables as far as bang for buck in getting off imported gas.