Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants • Hacker News Board

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#211

Post by adev_ » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 2:38 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…

> Yes they are building a bunch but Chinas grid share of nukes is actually declining y/y and is projected to continue to decline. Renewables are too cheap.

No. Nuclear energy production in China continue to increase and will probably continue to increase for the next 60y.

Its relative percentage in the global mix decreased. And this has nothing to do with Solar, but with the insane amount of Coal power plants that China had to setup quickly to match the increasing electricity demand of the developing country [1]

> 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.

Nuclear plants are mainly CAPEX based. And yes, excessive solar capacity tend to decrease nuclear profitability and increase global electricity cost.

But that is mainly a problem of public policy, not a technical one.

In country without tremendous of Hydro storage (e.g Switzerland or Norway), the most balanced economical combination tend to be Nuclear for baseload and Wind+Hydro+Storage for peaks.

[1]: https://www.iea.org/countries/china/electricity

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#212

Post by chpatrick » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 2:38 PM UTC

monegator wrote: post #93

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…

> time and cost as much as anything else you people have been saying that for at least twenty years. In the meantime the renewables have failed to produce a noticeable change in my part of europe, sentiment is increasingly pro-nuke but your adage keeps things still. Of course yf you never start, you never finish.

In my part of Europe (Hungary), on a sunny day we have more energy produced from solar (on top of about 50% nuclear) than we can actually use. Sometimes we're 110% zero-carbon and it's because of solar and nuclear.

As of writing this comment our energy mix is 35.69% solar, 23.19% nuclear, 26.66% nuclear imported from Slovakia. The rest is hydro and solar from Austria and about 5% gas and biomass.

In my opinion clean electricity is an almost solved problem, especially as storage gets better.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#213

Post by cogman10 » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 2:38 PM UTC

leonidasrup wrote: post #192

cogman10 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It's always hard count indirect deaths. We could for example argue that Japan, by stopping it's nuclear power plants for long time and replacing it's cheap nuclear electricity with expensive imported gas electricity caused more deaths than by direct radiological impact of Fukoshima accident. "Be Cautious with the Precautionary Principle: Evidence from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident" https://docs.iza.org/dp12687.p…

I pretty much fully agree.

I'm not actually arguing that Gen II plants need to be decommissioned immediately. I'm arguing that they need to be decommissioned and ideally replaced as soon as possible.

The process that takes can look like running the Gen II reactor while a replacement Gen IV reactor is being built and then decommissioning after the IV reactor is up and running.

I'm not against using nuclear, far from it. But I do think we need to actually have a plan about how we evolve the current nuclear fleet.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#214

Post by nikanj » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 2:39 PM UTC

dmix wrote: post #186

dalyons wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building _new_ nuclear is not going to make their energy costs cheaper. It is the most expensive form of generation

Then why is China building 30 new reactors on top of the 60 they already have, if it's not competitive? https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/china-says-i... The answer is usually more about how China can actually build things, not that nuclear isn't economically feasible.

China can build ten reactors for the cost of Germany running the appeals, environmental studies and neighborhood consultations for one

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#215

Post by thrownthatway » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 2:39 PM UTC

mannykannot wrote: post #195

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.

The claim that disasters happen to older plants is not refuted by the observation that lessons learned are applied to the whole fleet. One might object that there is selection bias in the original claim, due to the slowdown in construction of recent plants, but that is a separate issue. A more thorough investigation of the causes of all events leading to a significant degradation of safety margins would be needed to…

RMBKs are irrelevant to nuclear reactor safety.

You had a good argument up until you went there.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#216

Post by crote » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 2:39 PM UTC

throwaway_20357 wrote: post #131

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…

Why would it need to be safe for "hundreds of thousands of years" in the first place? Do we not think we would find some other use of nuclear waste within the next decades/centuries, and if not, just send it to space?

> if not, just send it to space

So what do you think is going to happen when (not "if") one of those rockets has a malfunction and blows up?

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#217

Post by phil21 » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC

Pay08 wrote: post #29

graemep wrote: post #9

Earlier 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…

Good news: nuclear costs the same to run at max output as it does idle! No change in fuel costs.

Other good news: solar and wind is trivial to curtail at the press of a button. And very cheap to deploy far more than needed on a day with perfect conditions.

Thus the obvious solution is keep your nuclear running at full load 24x7 and vary the rate at which you feed solar and wind into the grid on those days of optimal production. Idle solar is nearly free, which is one of its largest benefits! This way you have enough solar and even short term battery to meet peak daytime demand even on relatively cloudy days, and don’t need to overbuild your nuclear fleet. But you still get seasonal energy storage in the form of extremely dense nuclear fuel.

Nuclear compliments renewables quite well if you remove the fake financial incentives of “I must be allowed to be paid dump every watt possible into the grid at all times even if not needed, but cannot be called on to produce more energy when required”. Solar produces the least valuable watts. Nuclear the most. So use the cheap stuff whenever possible but fill it in with the expensive reliable source when needed.

That or you’re just gonna be backing renewables with natural gas. Which is of course cheaper, but not all that green.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#218

Post by leonidasrup » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #168

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…

Right, and ultimately Japan has decided the safest and I assume cheapest route with these reactors wasn't to rebuild but rather to decommission. These reactors can be made safer, but they all still have a foundational design flaw which means the ultimate goal should be replacing rather than continually spending money reinforcing.

On the contrary, Japan is changing it's energy policy and restarting it's nuclear reactors.

"Japan’s Energy Plan: New Policy Shifts Nuclear Power Stance from Reduction to Maximization"

https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/d01195/

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat...

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#219

Post by tialaramex » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC

nandomrumber wrote: post #32

andrepd wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> We actually don’t know m any of the long term risks and unintended consequences of providing wind / solar + batteries at scale.

The wind and sun already exist, we've been living with these "long term risks" for the entire time already. Risks like hurricane damage, skin cancer, heat exhaustion, the thing is that harvesting this energy isn't where that risk comes from, the energy was already dangerous.

That's the same lesson for the thermal plants. The nuclear reaction isn't directly how you make energy, it gets hot and we use that to make steam and we use the steam to make electricity, but the dangerous part wasn't the bit where we made electricity. Burning coal, again, you make heat, heat water to make steam, steam drives electricity turbine, but the dangerous parts were the exhaust is poisonous, the ash is poisonous, you're unbalancing the climate, and none of that is the electricity, that's from burning coal.

Releasing energy is dangerous, but the wind and sun were already released, there's nothing to be done about that, the decision is whether we should harness some of this energy or whether we're idiots.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#220

Post by herecomesyour_ » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 2:41 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #154

monegator wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> time and cost as much as anything else you people have been saying that for at least twenty years. In the meantime the renewables have failed to produce a noticeable change in my part of europe, sentiment is increasingly pro-nuke but your adage keeps things still. Of course yf you never start, you never finish.

> In the meantime the renewables have failed to produce a noticeable change in my part of europe Skill issue in your part of Europe, then. In my part of Europe, https://grid.iamkate.com/ is currently reporting 95% non-carbon sources, 85% renewables, and a power price of −£12.03/MWh. > twenty years When it comes online, Hinkley Point C will have taken 20 years from first approval. Too slow.

Heartening to see someone talking about both the pros and cons. I find here and on, for example reddit or twitter, that people are unanimously in favour of Nuclear.

I really don't think costs and delays are well understood. The costs are astronomical and in the UK the cost of energy has been monstrously subsidized. Consumers (public) are paying for this before the plants are running and for hundreds of years after they are running.

I wouldn't call myself anti-nuclear however as in terms of base load, sovereignty and environmentally it strikes me as hitting the sweet spot.

But I don't think people really appreciate how expensive it costs the public over the lifetime (even if "day to day" cost per MWh compares favourably with other sources), and how long it takes to get running. Even small modular reactors fail to address this.