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Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

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Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#121

Post by crote »

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 Apparently there also used to be a phaseout policy which is being rescinded: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/other/belgium-and-czechia-ram...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's a terrible idea to phase out operating nuclear plants which are still safe and within their planned lifetime

I completely agree, but that's a massive "but". Belgium's nuclear power plants are mostly known for their reliability issues.

They are outdated 2nd-gen PWR reactors, designed by a company with no other nuclear experience, operating in some of the most densely populated areas of Europe. Keeping them operating long beyond their original design lifespan probably isn't the best idea - and it is almost a certainty that cleanup costs are going to be significantly higher than expected.

To me it sounds like Engie has struck an incredible deal by offloading a giant liability to the Belgian government.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#122

Post by thrownthatway »

artursapek wrote: post #77
formerly_proven wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 and raising them is your primary purpose as a man. Anything else you spend your time on is secondary to that.

You’re absolutely 100% correct.

As a mid-fourties family-less man, I absolutely regret many of the decisions I’ve made that got me here.

I’ve realised I’ve been playing at a low steaks table. Smashing box and doing drugs is something a guy should do very briefly, if at all, in his early twenties. This is not a Man’s Game.

Then he’d better man up and focus on what is Good and Right or his life will be a fucking waste.

I mean even just purely selfishly, being frail-aged and having no one who genuine cares about me is fucking terrifying.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#123

Post by cbg0 »

kleiba2 wrote: post #105

Interesting fact: Belgium's neighbor Germany has commenced a search for a suitable place to store nuclear waste indefinitely in the 1970s. Given that such a place must be safe for hundreds of thousands of years, they have not yet found one. All the nuclear waste they've got is stored in temporary places (above ground) at former nuclear reactor sites. The search is not expected to conclude before 2040 at the very earl…

This sounds like a "perfect is the enemy of good" situation. There are certain types of reactors that can reuse uranium to further reduce its half life to around 6000 years so the one million years legal requirement is an unreasonable target.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#124

Post by aaron695 »

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…

[dead]

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#125

Post by JumpCrisscross »

roenxi wrote: post #100
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The #1 problem leading to humans not having enough to live comfortably is that we have an enormous number of humans and limited resources Not particularly. We've ridden massive increases in both quality of life and population (at both the per-country and global scales) over the last two centuries.

In the sense that the global median income crept from about $0 to $10,000 sure over a few centuries. That's a big achievement but it isn't exactly the best case scenario. We want a world where everyone can live at least a 6- or 7- figure salary.

> That's a big achievement but it isn't exactly the best case scenario. We want a world where everyone can live at least a 6- or 7- figure salary

I actually agree with this vision. But I wouldn't say every human not being a millionaire is "the #1 problem" today.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#126

Post by SecretDreams »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #82
SecretDreams wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nuclear reactors that take a fuckton of money and many years to come online. Yeah, but they last the majority of a lifetime. If you look at areas that built out nuclear 50 years ago, their kids and grandkids have still been benefiting from those infrastructure choices. They've been politically agnostic, because, once built, they're there. They're also relatively clean, and insensitive to the weather. I'm a big advo…

> I'm a big advocate for renewables, but it's hard to not also advocate for nuclear to be in that mix. It's not hard to argue that new nuclear should be added to the mix. The cost and time required to build them is non trivial. During that entire construction time you can build renewables substantially faster and for a lower price. And while you're building the prices continue to go down, meaning it gets ever cheaper…

> The cost and time required to build them is non trivial. During that entire construction time you can build renewables substantially faster and for a lower price.

They're not mutually exclusive. If time and money were the only considerations in life, I'd only have pets instead of some kids too. We'd never go to war because it would be expensive and costly. I'd drive only gas cars because they're cheaper and easier to fuel up. And so on and so forth.

Nuclear takes more time and money, but it is great for the diversification of your energy grid. It will likely outlive either of us. It will produce jobs for generations and a RELIABLE base load for as long as it exists. It will not easily be at the whims of different politicians of the day because of the momentum required to get it going in the first place.

The list goes on. We shouldn't make energy decisions based only on time and money in an economy where other choices don't play by those same rules.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#127

Post by mytailorisrich »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #89
roenxi wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the West is also largely not keen on producing new humans (time and costs as much as anything else). > And seems to think it can just import people from other, far, away places. That seems fundamentally OK? The #1 problem leading to humans not having enough to live comfortably is that we have an enormous number of humans and limited resources. We can't unlimit resources. There isn't a very nice way to force peo…

> The #1 problem leading to humans not having enough to live comfortably is that we have an enormous number of humans and limited resources Not particularly. We've ridden massive increases in both quality of life and population (at both the per-country and global scales) over the last two centuries.

And we have brought the planet to its knees in the process...

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#128

Post by jlnthws »

kleiba2 wrote: post #105

Interesting fact: Belgium's neighbor Germany has commenced a search for a suitable place to store nuclear waste indefinitely in the 1970s. Given that such a place must be safe for hundreds of thousands of years, they have not yet found one. All the nuclear waste they've got is stored in temporary places (above ground) at former nuclear reactor sites. The search is not expected to conclude before 2040 at the very earl…

I wonder where they store coal waste.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#129

Post by modo_mario »

Projectiboga wrote: post #94
UltraSane wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

With waste with half lifes in the tens of thousands of years sitting in metal casks which cant last 1,000 years.

If I remember well most radioactive waste by volume is not from nuclear energy production and the share that is very small would be drastically lower if places like the US didn't ban it's recycling. It's half life can also be drastically reduced.

I also wonder. Is it the implied danger over those tens of thousands of years or would it end up being something more similar to Ramsar in Iran long before that?

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#130

Post by toasty228 »

kleiba2 wrote: post #105

Interesting fact: Belgium's neighbor Germany has commenced a search for a suitable place to store nuclear waste indefinitely in the 1970s. Given that such a place must be safe for hundreds of thousands of years, they have not yet found one. All the nuclear waste they've got is stored in temporary places (above ground) at former nuclear reactor sites. The search is not expected to conclude before 2040 at the very earl…

This is such a non problem, here is the waste from the entire french nuclear production ever (the red cube): https://www.discoverthegreentech.com/wp-content/uploads/2023...

Meanwhile I've been filtering the german coal byproducts with my lungs, and paying my electricity 2-3x more per kwh than the french

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