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Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

dpa-international.com

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Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#11

Post by jcattle »

modo_mario wrote: post #5
jcattle wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a better analogy would be an old gas boiler. Worst case for a car is that you break down on the side of the road (or I guess the brake lines give out). Worst case for an old unmaintained gas boiler is that your house explodes. I would put the risk of old NPPs with cracks in their 40 year old concrete more on the gas boiler side. Edit for the downvoters: A properly maintained old gas boiler will probably be fi…

>I would put the risk of old NPPs with cracks in their 40 year old concrete more on the gas boiler side. Are you referencing something specific that isn't bullshit?

Tihange and Doel have had incidents and significant maintenance downtime related to issues with concrete.

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Belgian-outages-...

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#12

Post by close04 »

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 Apparently there also used to be a phaseout policy which is being rescinded: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/other/belgium-and-czechia-ram...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

> It seems there has been a complex balancing act which any owner of an old car will be familiar with: spend more money on keeping it operational, vs scrapping.

This is a different choice because the car analogy usually has "buy new one" as a term. Not having to build a new plant makes the choice far less controversial and also cheaper.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#14

Post by andrepd »

jcattle wrote: post #3
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 Apparently there also used to be a phaseout policy which is being rescinded: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/other/belgium-and-czechia-ram...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 think a better analogy would be an old gas boiler. Worst case for a car is that you break down on the side of the road (or I guess the brake lines give out). Worst case for an old unmaintained gas boiler is that your house explodes. I would put the risk of old NPPs with cracks in their 40 year old concrete more on the gas boiler side. Edit for the downvoters: A properly maintained old gas boiler will probably be fi…

Back in reality though coal and gas and oil actually kill many tens of thousands of people every year in Europe alone, while nuclear is demonstrably, objectively safer (HBO scaremongering series notwithstanding).

It's actually a great analogy you make, because what you portray as the "car that at worst might break down" is actually the thing that kills 1,500,000 people every year (yet many people seem to take as just a fact of nature).

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#15

Post by usrnm »

ramesh31 wrote: post #4

[flagged]

Not everything is a conspiracy, europeans are perfectly capable of fucking up themselves, one of the things they're still good at. Russia is one of the biggest exporters of nuclear reactors in the world and sells them just as happily as oil or gas.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#16

Post by inglor_cz »

ramesh31 wrote: post #4

[flagged]

Already back in the Soviet times, anti-nuclear propaganda served another purpose as well. Many reactor designs were suitable for production of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium.

If you can persuade the population to fear nuclear power, you also guarantee reduction of its (and its allies') ability to build and maintain WMDs deep into the future, across multiple elections and governments that might not go your preferred way.

Meanwhile, of course, the Soviets built nuclear power plants like crazy and used them for military enrichment. Until the day when explosion of their own RMBK reactor added a lot of unintended gravitas to their long-cultivated message in the West.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#17

Post by derektank »

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…

Renewables are cheap. Renewables plus battery storage still are not and nuclear is a reasonable alternative for base load power.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#18

Post by inglor_cz »

usrnm wrote: post #15
ramesh31 wrote: post #4

[flagged]

Not everything is a conspiracy, europeans are perfectly capable of fucking up themselves, one of the things they're still good at. Russia is one of the biggest exporters of nuclear reactors in the world and sells them just as happily as oil or gas.

Not everything is a conspiracy, true.

That said, if something really fits into Russian strategic interests, I'd be surprised if they didn't put their thumbs on the scale somewhere, and propaganda + targeted bribes do have some effect on the population.

Already since Lenin, propaganda directed at intellectuals and politicans abroad was the main weapon of the system. USSR formally ended in 1991, but the people and traditions are still extant and after a 90s hiatus are deployed again. The entire Putin's narrow circle of power are old-school USSR 60+ y.o. spooks, they won't change their ways any more than a tiger his spots.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#19

Post by 21asdffdsa12 »

ramesh31 wrote: post #4

[flagged]

It would not have worked so well, if there was not a natural tendency of humans to detach from reality in surplus-bribed times. One can not blame an adversary for using a blatantly available interface to hack you.

The whole idea of an idealized humanity fell apart as soon as there was stress

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#20

Post by Tade0 »

jcattle wrote: post #3
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 think a better analogy would be an old gas boiler. Worst case for a car is that you break down on the side of the road (or I guess the brake lines give out). Worst case for an old unmaintained gas boiler is that your house explodes. I would put the risk of old NPPs with cracks in their 40 year old concrete more on the gas boiler side. Edit for the downvoters: A properly maintained old gas boiler will probably be fi…

Worst case for a car is the approximately ten people who will die today in the US alone due to the poor state of their, or someone else's vehicle.

I believe the downvotes might be from you downplaying the danger of a badly maintained car.

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