Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants • Hacker News Board

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#411

Post by vince14 » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 5:07 PM UTC

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #300

flakeoil wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably have to look at the whole picture. Having part of the energy generation from nuclear probably makes the total cheaper than having no nuclear. Even if nuclear maybe is the most expensive. Not having enough energy or having it cut off by a neighbour is very expensive.

That is not the case. Grid modelers always land on renewables being cheaper. Except for the cases when the studies start with "assuming cheap and fast to build nuclear power". https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/04/17/new-metric-shows-rene...

That is not the case. There are LCOLC, LFSCOE and others which land on renewables being way more expensive. Even without your made up claim about "assuming cheap and fast to build nuclear power".

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#412

Post by natmaka » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 5:09 PM UTC

shawabawa3 wrote: post #119

cogman10 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fukushima. It was a Gen 1 plant which already has the issue that a thermal runaway is possible. There were other examples of this happening like TMI. The backup for Fukushima was onsite generators which were flooded and ultimately failed causing the meltdown. The safety lessons we learned from all gen 1 reactors was to apply passive shutdown mechanism where if input power fails fission ultimately stops. That's not so…

It's worth noting that the Fukoshima disaster 1. Lead to basically zero direct deaths 2. Was caused by the forth most powerful earthquake to have ever been recorded in the world (since ~1900), and the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan 3. ~20,000 people died due to the Earthquake Requiring a nuclear plant in Belgium to be safe enough to survive what caused the Fukoshima disaster is probably not a good us…

> 1. Lead to basically zero direct deaths

"Fukushima Daiichi Accident: Official figures show that there have been 2313 disaster-related deaths among evacuees from Fukushima prefecture. Disaster-related deaths are in addition to the about 19,500 that were killed by the earthquake or tsunami."

According to the "World Nuclear Association" (mission: to facilitate the growth of the nuclear sector by connecting players across the value chain, representing the industry’s position in key world forums, and providing authoritative information and influencing key audiences)

Source: https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-sec...

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#413

Post by soulclap » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 5:11 PM UTC

I am surprised that a community like HN where a large percentage consists of developers is so positive about a nuclear power plant.

One bug could lead to severe damage to everything and everyone around a nuclear power plant. We see those kind of bugs on the front page daily.

In my opinion it is absolutely irresponsible to start them up in the first. I have seen too much to actually trust in people always getting their shit right.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#414

Post by panja » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 5:15 PM UTC

throwaway2037 wrote: post #409

Alexsky2 wrote: post #253

A bit unrelated to the Belgium story but I recently visited Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant near San Luis Obispo, CA and learned a ton about the technical details, safety systems, and policy decisions that go into operating a nuclear power plant. When operating at full capacity, it provides up to 10% of California power! While there is certainly always more such facilities can do for safety and efficiency, my impre…

I did some research about that nuclear power plant. In 1985 dollars, the total construction cost was 5.6B USD. That is an astonishing amount of money. That is at least 16B USD in 2026 money. If you also include decomissioning costs of about 4-5B USD... how the fuck does nuclear power make any economic sense? PV solar plus batteries: ALL THE WAY. To be clear, I am not anti-nuclear power by any means. I think it is a t…

Maybe there is a discussion to be had about WHY it needs to make economic sense? Power is a natural monopoly, maybe it doesn't need to be a part of the economy?

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#415

Post by pjc50 » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 5:16 PM UTC

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #295

UltraSane wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

At a cost which could generate ~10 billion watts of very low CO2 electricity for decades if invested in renewables. Also remember that large parts of a nuclear plant is replaced over its operational life. Control systems, steam generators, turbines, generators, tubing, valves etc. What stays is the outer shell and pressure vessel. A nuclear plant doesn't just "work" for 60 years. And there's no trouble designing rene…

Under appreciated benefits of Big Photodiode is that there's no moving parts larger than an electron.

They do degrade over time, especially due to weathering of the seals and UV exposure, but all the quoted numbers are worst-case.

(Inverters are more complicated products and may need more frequently replaced)

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#416

Post by vidarh » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 5:19 PM UTC

bell-cot wrote: post #181

vidarh wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd likely do less harm if you just dumped that waste in a heap on a roadside than if you shut down the plants and as a result ended up with more coal plans continuing to run. Where shutting down nuclear would result in wind or solar replacing it, you might be better off. Maybe hydro - with a very big caveat that the big risk with hydro is dam failures, which are rare, but can be absolutely devastating when they ha…

Going forward, so long as you have competent engineering, the biggest risk of hydro power will be your water sources effectively drying up. (That could be literal, or diversion to irrigation and other uses, or various combinations.) But the yet-bigger problem with hydro power is the extreme scarcity of suitable dam locations.

Competent engineering isn't enough. You also need to never end up being in a war zone, and being able to commit to ongoing maintenance forever, or outlawing all construction far downstream (or finding the even more scarce type of locations where nobody wants to build downstream).

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#417

Post by tshaddox » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 5:20 PM UTC

arijun wrote: post #362

thrownthatway wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What nuclear disasters? Exactly? Name one nuclear disaster at an old nuclear plant whose lessons weren’t applied to the whole fleet.

I think the issue comes with unknown unknowns. Before Fukushima someone might have said the same thing you just have, but a new disaster still came along and caused a lot of issues. I am still bullish on nuclear, but I think waving away concerns might do more harm than good.

Unknown design flaws in old nuclear power plants wouldn't be fixed in new nuclear power plants, unless if by chance.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#418

Post by throwaway2037 » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 5:21 PM UTC

Orygin wrote: post #203

leonidasrup wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear reactors are regularly maintained, tested and checked. When possible, old plants are upgraded to new safety standards. You can upgrade certain components, and safety systems. However things like the containment structure or pressure vessel can't be changed. You for example can't retrofit a core catcher, but you could improve the turbines, I think Steam Generators as well, replace PLC's, Tsunami proof your sit…

Belgium's reactors are really old, and have lots of issues. They have been dragging their feet for decades on the subject and instead of building new reactors 10-20 years ago, they are now un-decomissioning older reactors..

    > Belgium's reactors are really old, and have lots of issues.

I want to point out that Belgium has the (global) gold standard of nuclear regulation. They have annual reviews, 5 year major reassessments, and 10 year Periodic Safety Review (PSR). The purpose of the PSR is to build a plan to keep all nuclear plants up-to-date with state of the art safety mechanisms. Each PSR has mandatory upgrades. If operators fail or refuse these upgrades, they are forced to shutdown. There is no one other country who does nuclear safety quite like Belgium.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#419

Post by pu_pe » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 5:24 PM UTC

dalyons wrote: post #187

adev_ wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And after 10 to 15 years pf construction and billions of euros they will realize that nuclear energy is a lot more expensive than wind and solar plus storage. It is not. And people who repeat this lie have generally very little clue of the reality of an electrical grid and how it is designed and managed in practice. Solar and Wind are cheaper in term of LCOE. LCOE is a secondary metric in a much larger equation. A…

I think it is actually the pro nuke case that often has misconceptions of how a modern grid works, repeating terms like “base load” etc Because actually nuclear is terrible in a grid increasingly full of nearly-free variable sources (solar&wind). The nukes need to stay at 100% all the time selling their power at a high fixed price to have any remote chance of being economical. Cheap variables push nuke's expensive po…

What happens in days where renewables can't produce enough energy? Or the evenings where we don't have enough batteries (all evenings so far and for the next decade at least)? You can call it base load or whatever you want, but that energy is coming either from hydro, nuclear or a carbon-based source. And those carbons are hard to come by these days, so even if nuclear power is expensive, at least it is reliable.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#420

Post by tshaddox » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 5:25 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #143

shawabawa3 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that the Fukoshima disaster 1. Lead to basically zero direct deaths 2. Was caused by the forth most powerful earthquake to have ever been recorded in the world (since ~1900), and the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan 3. ~20,000 people died due to the Earthquake Requiring a nuclear plant in Belgium to be safe enough to survive what caused the Fukoshima disaster is probably not a good us…

> Lead to basically zero direct deaths Coal has lead to basically zero direct death, and a lot of indirect deaths. That's a bad way to measure the damage done by a power generation mechanism. > Was caused by the forth most powerful earthquake to have ever been recorded in the world (since ~1900), and the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan Yeah, crazy stuff happens and radioactive spills have longterm eff…

> Coal has lead to basically zero direct death, and a lot of indirect deaths.

Huh? Are you not counting coal mining, which historically caused thousands of deaths per year and presumably still causes at least hundreds per year (not sure what info we have on that from China).