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Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

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Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#261

Post by aeyes »

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…

> All the nuclear waste they've got is stored in temporary places (above ground) at former nuclear reactor sites.

Some was stored underground in the past with bad results because the former mines were unstable.

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

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

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#262

Post by thrownthatway »

cogman10 wrote: post #232
philipallstar wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > ~20,000 people died due to the Earthquake > That's a non-sequitur. I think this is to establish that the large number of deaths from the disaster weren't due to the nuclear plant, which people seem to assume.

People assume it, I did not. Nor did I claim it. It is a non-sequitur because we aren't talking about deaths from natural disasters.

We actually are.

There are plenty of smaller nuclear power reactor issues listen on Wikipedia, but the three big ones are Chernobyl, but that was an RMBK, which no one built except those crazy Russians, TMI which didn’t kill or injury anyone, and Fukushima Daiitchi which resulted in one death.

So we’re not really talking about deaths from nuclear power reactors, because there aren’t any, discounting Chernobyl because that won’t ever happen again.

So we must be talking about the deaths from that one natural disaster associated with the Fukushima Daiitchi meltdowns. Otherwise, I dint know what deaths you’re talking about.

More people injur themselves falling off ladders while trying to clean their solar panels than nuclear power ever will.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#265

Post by cogman10 »

mpweiher wrote: post #259
cogman10 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because I'm confused at to what the

> On the contrary

was about. Contrary to what?

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#266

Post by Insanity »

NeutralForest wrote: post #38

I just want Belgium to go all-in on renewables, we [already have a pretty good electricity production make-up]( https://statbel.fgov.be/en/themes/energy/electricity-product... ) but we're still [too dependent on oil]( https://www.iea.org/countries/belgium/energy-mix ). Hopefully the current energy crisis is a wake up call.

Compared to other countries I've lived in, Belgium doesn't do too bad of a job in promoting 'green energy'. Although I've not lived there for some years, they used to subsidize things like solar panels on roofs (at least when my parents installed them 20-ish years ago). And there are 'green energy' companies as far as I'm aware, so you don't have to stick with the larger energy providers.

That said, my information is outdated.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#267

Post by mpweiher »

cogman10 wrote: post #232
philipallstar wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > ~20,000 people died due to the Earthquake > That's a non-sequitur. I think this is to establish that the large number of deaths from the disaster weren't due to the nuclear plant, which people seem to assume.

People assume it, I did not. Nor did I claim it. It is a non-sequitur because we aren't talking about deaths from natural disasters.

Yes we actually are talking about deaths from natural disasters.

The Fukushima nuclear power plant was destroyed by the Tsunami. It didn't spontaneously combust.

A lot of other infrastructure that was impacted/destroyed by the Tsunami claimed lives. For example, a dam broke due to the Tsunami and that dam breach killed 4 people. Which coincidentally happens to be 4 more than were killed by the nuclear power plant when it was destroyed by the Tsunami.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#268

Post by pmontra »

shevy-java wrote: post #241

I understand the "Realpolitik" here, but ... > "This government chooses safe, affordable, and sustainable energy. With less dependence on fossil imports and more control over our own supply," he wrote on X. Really? So nuclear power plants are suddenly the new "clean" hype? Because if Belgium is stating "more control over our own supply", can we mention a little something THAT BELGIUM HAS TO IMPORT URANIUM? So the "ow…

I found this source about Belgium imports of uranium [1]. The partner "World" is about 50% of the total. These data are from 2023.

Maybe something changed in 2024 because [2] "Belgian nuclear plants no longer run on uranium from Russia". It ends with "Engie does not disclose how many different contracts were concluded and with which suppliers, but does say it obtained a sufficient geographical spread of its supply, Belga News Agency reports." So who knows.

[1] https://wits.worldbank.org/trade/comtrade/en/country/BEL/yea...

[2] https://www.brusselstimes.com/1080337/belgian-nuclear-plants...

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#269

Post by thrownthatway »

harrouet wrote: post #229
wholinator2 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know but i feel like Nuclear reactors are something worth taking to the 99.99% percentile of safety. How much money does it really cost? And how does that money compare to the economic prosperity of the land that is currently radiation free. As well, i think us (assuming) not knowledgeable Nuclear engineers discussing the cost benefit of reactor safety should be basically locked out of the conversation. Plaus…

Nuclear is already at a much higher safety standard than 99.99%! About costs: it is actually cheap. 95% of the average total cost of a MWh is in building the plant. Comparisons sometimes show the cost of a MWh from wind or solar, but is a fallacy because they assume an infrastructure on the side to ensure 24x7 power generation (i.e. they point out a marginal cost instead of average total cost).

Yep!

Wind / solar + (largely non-existent) batteries are cheap!

Until you factor in the gas peaker plants that need to be built watt-for-watt unless you’re okay with poor people freezing in the dark, or melting in the heat. Because rich people can afford their own back up generators or on-site batteries.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#270

Post by anonymars »

thrownthatway wrote: post #215
mannykannot wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Even if we don't treat Chernobyl as sui generis, the safety situation with nuclear power is akin to that of airplanes. We don't bat an eye at the quotidian death toll of cars or coal

I've yet to see a nuclear safety argument that doesn't reduce to 'nuclear energy provokes emotional fear'

Oh, it occasionally irradiates a swath of land and renders it uninhabitable? How about coal ash ponds or indefinite mine fires or infamous oil spills or dam failures or even the mining scars...

Happy to be proven wrong, but https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...

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