Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants • Hacker News Board

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#371

Post by nickserv » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 4:20 PM UTC

tokai wrote: post #112

nickserv wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed. Also, even if true, a lot is likely due to people leaving the countryside and migrating to the cities during the latter half of the 20th century. To feed these urban populations, an enormous amount of food needs to be imported from other countries. So really the deforestation has been exported, same as pollution from manufacturing.

You don't need citation for common knowledge.

If OP had said "in last 40 years" then yeah sure.

But since the middle ages, or 500 years ago, how is that common knowledge?

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#372

Post by pqtyw » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 4:20 PM UTC

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #273

mpweiher wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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 Fu…

None of this addresses the points made. It is talking around the subject by trying to shift the focus or narrow the perspective. The cleanup bill is real. The inability to get insurance is real. The precautionary evacuation of entire cities is real. The possibility of Fukushima scale accidents all depend on local conditions. And it may be as trivial as upgrades and component changes over the decades leading to safeti…

> The inability to get insurance is real.

Which obviously doesn't prove what you think it proves...

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#373

Post by veunes » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 4:20 PM UTC

wiz21c wrote: post #361

Good news: we will leave oil Bad news: according to the discussions here on HN it appears that there is no consensus on what the good mix of renewable/nuclear is. Therefore us, citizens, will be manipulated by politics.

The manipulation risk is real, but it usually comes from pretending there is a painless answer

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#374

Post by thrownthatway » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 4:20 PM UTC

derriz wrote: post #328

ETH_start wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The impression I've gotten is that almost all of the massive bills associated with nuclear power are because of an irrational fear of the radiation. Factoring in all the nuclear disasters and the radiations released from them, nuclear causes something on the order of 10,000 times fewer deaths than coal per megawatt generated.

“Better than coal” is a weak argument. Coal hasn’t been in the “game” for decades. The problem for nuclear isn’t anything irrational - it’s economics and operational and deployment flexibility - newer tech like solar PV, gas turbines, batteries and wind have created a new Pareto frontier for electricity generation and nuclear just isn’t anywhere near this frontier for any objective.

> Coal hasn’t been in the “game” for decades.

What are talking about?

* China's installed coal-based power generation capacity was 1080 GW in 2021, about half the total installed capacity of power stations in China.*

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

India is the fifth-largest geological coal reserves globally and as the second-largest consumer, coal continues to be an indispensable energy source, contributing to 55% of the national energy mix. Over the past decade, thermal power, predominantly fueled by coal, has consistently accounted for more than 74% of our total power generation.

https://static.pib.gov.in/WriteReadData/specificdocs/documen...

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#375

Post by BurningFrog » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 4:20 PM UTC

arijun wrote: post #355

pqtyw wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nuclear disasters happen at old plants. You used plural? What disasters are you talking about? Even Chernobyl wasn't technically first generation (not that it has anything to do with power plan safety in western countries anyway). Three Mile Island kind of proved it was fairly safe given that's the worst disaster to ever happen without any external factors (like tsunamis or being designed and run by soviet engineer…

I may agree with your conclusion that old plants are safe enough (or at least take a deep dive study to see if their expected externality is worse than whatever would replace them). However: > the worst disaster to ever happen without any external factors The problem is external factors happen. You can’t just raise your hands up and say “wasn’t my fault,” when they do. A tsunami washing over a solar farm would be a l…

The Fukushima quake was a truly extraordinary outlier though!

4th biggest quake ever recorded in history hit at the exact spot where the tsunami could overpower the protective wall at the reactor. Yet nobody died from the radiation.

Meanwhile the 20k people who died in the tsunami are forgotten. No one demands we stop building cities by the ocean.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#376

Post by polski-g » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 4:21 PM UTC

croes wrote: post #311

venzaspa wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The French government have been able to safely store actual nuclear weapons without incident, so I'm sure they can do just fine with a few barrels of nuclear waste.

So you want to guard nuclear waste by the military just like nuclear weapons or what is your point?

Yes obviously. Its a trivial amount of waste generated over 60 years, less than the size of a football field. I'm pretty sure a football field can be guarded.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#377

Post by pqtyw » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 4:22 PM UTC

crote wrote: post #303

ToValueFunfetti wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>1. Lead to basically zero direct deaths >"Basically zero" is a funny way to spell "a few dozen". Wikipedia asserts one "suspected" death, which I think is within bounds to call "basically zero". It does list a couple dozen injuries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident

Just a few lines down: > The displacements resulted in at least 51 deaths as well as stress and fear of radiological hazards

It's not clear the mismanaged massive evacuation was even necessary. In hindsight its like that less people would have died if they just stayed there for a few more days.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#378

Post by polski-g » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 4:22 PM UTC

1718627440 wrote: post #144

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…

> they have not yet found one. Meaning no region can be selected by a politician with out committing political suicide.

Yes, putting it in a swing state is a non-starter. But putting the waste in a solid red or blue state? Makes perfect sense.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#379

Post by cryptoneo » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 4:23 PM UTC

Everytime this comes up, HN is becoming more and more an X-like echo chamber: Touting nukes as the solution to a spike-load problem in a densely populated area, and the waste disposal as a solved problem (by externalizing the cost).

Meanwhile the prices dropped further than ever, 20kW peak with 20kWh batteries for EUR 10k, which provides >95% self-sufficiency in a 2p Household and lets you sell more than 80% of the yield (though prices are already very low when the sun is shining). And this is without an EV yet. Please enlighten me: Why are we still having these discussions? I don't see why that wouldn't scale in the US as well, what's the status with flexible energy pricing?

If anything, we need to build fast, flexible power plants, but their lobby groups are well oiled already without our support.

Re: Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants

#380

Post by koonsolo » Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 4:25 PM UTC

xchip wrote: post #358

Feels like a bailout. Belgium’s playbook is simple: skip maintenance, let it decay, then replace it on the taxpayer’s dime.

No, it was a deliberate strategy from the green party that were very anti-nuclear. They replaced it with gas power plants. And if you think this is a joke, no it isn't.