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Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

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Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#251

Post by cogman10 »

boringg wrote: post #204
cogman10 wrote: post #54

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. 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 u…

> A healthy social attitude to nuclear would be to require periodic upgrades or decommissions as the plant ages. Tell me you don't work in energy without telling me. Most heavily regulated industry on the planet - constant upgrades and safety reports.

Name a Gen II plant that was upgraded to a Gen III, III+ or Gen IV plant.

There's a reason new Gen II plants cannot be built, and all the regulations and safety reports in the world will not fix the fundamental design flaw of these plants.

We can mitigate and make meltdown less likely, we can't eliminate it without replacing the plants all together.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#252

Post by afh1 »

adev_ wrote: post #116
716dpl wrote: post #31

The EU also released a plan in the past week to accelerate the deployment of both nuclear and renewable energy. This oil shock is going to have lasting impacts. https://energy.ec.europa.eu/publications/accelerateeu-energy...

> This oil shock is going to have lasting impacts. It is not only the oil shock. Most of the nuclear initiatives at the EU level have been mostly blocked by the German government for the last 15y. The Russian gas crisis in 2022 reshuffled the cards entirely: Germany realized that constructing its entire energy policy on a foreign asset (Russian Gas) was not really a smart move. The German position changed significant…

German anti-nuclear "greens" destroying the country's economy by disabling green power generation will go down in history as one of the worst political blunders in this century, probably next to Trump's war in Iran. And for 15y if you said anything about it you were an evil capitalist who doesn't care about the environment. No wonder the country is ever more polarized.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#253

Post by Alexsky2 »

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 impression is that smart people are working hard to ensure the lessons of previous disasters and potential future ones are mitigated, and that nuclear energy, whether through next-gen small module reactors or legacy systems, will be an important aspect of our future energy grid, especially with the rapidly rising energy demand predicted over the next two decades. If you are interested in a tour, the form can be found here: https://www.pge.com/en/about/pge-systems/nuclear-power.html

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#254

Post by WalterBright »

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…

The Fukushima disaster could have been averted simply by putting the backup electric generators on a platform, and venting the hydrogen gases outside.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#256

Post by kibwen »

lifty wrote: post #66

There's a very dark scenario where for some reason or another (all out nuclear war or asteroid hit) sunlight is blocked, in which case having stable base load energy production from nuclear would be very useful. I know this is an unlikely scenario and hopefully it never happens, but it's always good to think about tail risks like these.

Surely you must realize that the fuel for nuclear power plants is not more freely available than sunlight. In the event of "all out nuclear war or asteroid hit", you're not getting those shipments from Kazakhstan.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#257

Post by mpweiher »

crote wrote: post #145
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…

> 1. Lead to basically zero direct deaths "Basically zero" is a funny way to spell "a few dozen". It also led to a $187 billion cleanup bill - which is expected to grow by a few more tens of billions over the next decades. > 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 Sure, but Belgium has to be prep…

> "Basically zero" is a funny way to spell "a few dozen".

The actual death toll of the accident itself is zero.

There was one incident of cancer that was ruled a "workplace accident" by an insurance tribunal that went through the press without much vetting.

However, this was for his overall work at the plant, largely preceding the accident.

The WHO says there has been and will be no measurable health impact due to Fukushima.

What caused a lot of deaths was the evacuation that almost certainly should not have happened.

"The forced evacuation of 154,000 people ″was not justified by the relatively moderate radiation levels″, but was ordered because ″the government basically panicked″" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiophobia

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095758201...

> If nuclear is so safe, how come nobody is willing to insure it?

Nuclear is insured. The German nuclear insurance so far has paid out €15000,- since it was created in 1957.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Nuclear_Reactor_Insuran...

For comparison, just the German nuclear auto-insurance pays out north of €15 billion per year.

There is a reason both Japan and Ukraine maintain and are actually expanding their nuclear programs.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#258

Post by __alexs »

subscribed wrote: post #80
__alexs wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sure, as long as you're comfortable, meaning you can find a good job that will work around your parental duties, and thst pays well enough you can rent or buy within a catchment area :) Sure, that's doable. Millions of working parents in powerty in every G7 country can attest how easy it is.

I grew up only a notch or two above poverty, I know what it's like and you can still be a good parent and not well off.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#259

Post by mpweiher »

cogman10 wrote: post #236
leonidasrup wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Hmm, I may have been too vague. When I stated "these" I was talking specifically about the Fukushima plants and not Japan's policy for reactors nationally. Are they planning on restarting the Fukushima plants? I didn't think they were.

The Fukushima plants were completely destroyed by the meltdowns and subsequent Hydrogen explosions that were caused by the Tsunami.

There was never any chance of "restarting" them, so not sure why you brought that up.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#260

Post by WalterBright »

crote wrote: post #145
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…

> 1. Lead to basically zero direct deaths "Basically zero" is a funny way to spell "a few dozen". It also led to a $187 billion cleanup bill - which is expected to grow by a few more tens of billions over the next decades. > 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 Sure, but Belgium has to be prep…

> It also led to a $187 billion cleanup bill - which is expected to grow by a few more tens of billions over the next decades.

Apparently wildlife is thriving in the radiation zone.

Intensity of radiation fades over the years (exponential decay). The bad stuff is gone fairly quickly. Decades means pretty low levels.

Just leave the radiation zone as a nature preserve, like the Chernobyl zone.

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