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Belgium To Give Up Nuclear Power
AmiMoJo writes "Belgium's political parties have reached a conditional agreement to shut down the country's two remaining nuclear power stations. Older reactors will be decommissioned by 2015, with the final closures happening before 2025. The exit is conditional on alternatives being available. 'If it turns out we won't face shortages and prices would not skyrocket, we intend to stick to the nuclear exit law of 2003,' a spokeswoman for Belgium's energy and climate ministry said."
Ron Paul has said that if he is elected, then he will support the opening of two new nuclear power plants for every power plant that is decomissioned.
I'd happily pay you Tuesday for a biopsy today!
Since they currently get 55% of the power from nuclear generation, I'd say they're charting a course to the stone age.
What is bothersome is that proof is now showing up that droughts and climate issues are man-made. Now, they are looking to close their nuke plants. Foolish. Instead, it should remain part of their energy matrix until they get enough other energy and storage going.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Both are already major energy providers to the rest of Europe. With Belgium and Germany shutting down their nuclear plants, both countries are going to make billions.
"its not like we aren't just as fucked if a nuclear powerplant blows up in france or in belgium"
There being no reason a modern nuke plant should "blow up", it makes more sense to pay France for power and avoid the construction, maintenance, closure, and remediation expenses of having plants in Belgium.
You need electricity. You don't need to own what produces it, and a microscopic country such as Belgium risks nothing by outsourcing power production next door. OTOH it avoids all the pitfalls of new construction.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
1. the space industry was booming
2. the nuclear industry was booming
3. the computer industry was just a support system for the real heroic industries
now: the computer industry is the preeminent world industry (in terms of influence, company valuations, etc), and the space industry and nuclear industry are frail, aged, and dying
not exactly what people imagined 50 years ago, in policy making and the popular imagination
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Outsourcing is never risk free. Belgians are going to pay for the construction, maintenance, closure, and remediation expenses embedded in the power costs, plus profit plus be dependent on someone for energy who will definitely put their own needs first.
If we were looking at a future glut in energy you might be ok. But that isn't really what the predictions are.
Closing down old plants and building something better is a great idea. Why not do that instead?
I'm from Belgium and this has been discussed since 2003... why now? Knowing that Electrabel until recently was the owner of these 2 power, the following may explain why the decision has been taken to decommission them:
From the Wikipedia page for Electrabel:
For a long time a majority stake in Electrabel was held by the French company Suez. In 2005, Suez increased its stake to 96.7% and a squeeze-out of the remaining shareholders was completed on 10 July 2007, when the company was delisted from the stock exchange. Following Suez's 2008 merger with Gaz de France, Electrabel is now a subsidiary of GDF Suez.
I won't speculate on the exact economic benefits it will bring to GDF, but lets be clear the decision wasn't made for climate or anti-nuclear reasons. This decision will certainly assure the energy monopoly of GDF in Belgium.
Pretty hard with old reactors. You require something catastrophic to happen. Pretty close to impossible for new designs that use passive cooling systems.
Om, nomnomnom...
if (false && false) exit_nukes();
Crunching the numbers, the health effects from a normally operating coal plant (+10% cancer rate within 20 km) is about the projected effect of Fukushima's fallout for inhabitants within 30 km. Long term effects of coal outside this range are also similar (same order of magnitude), regular functioning coal vs. major nuclear accident.
Furthermore, the majority of the long term Fukushima radiation effect (Cs) has a half-life of two years, were much of the cancer effect from coal is permanent due to chemical ground water and soil contamination.
Not quite. Legislation was passed in 2003 requiring it, but the current news is that both political sides have finally hammered out a strategy, plan to do so and actually agreed to the implementation process.
Actually, for politicians, eight years to plan turning off a few power plants seems almost speedy... *cough*
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Terrorists might bring 500 tons of TNT into a nuclear plant and set it off.
What is more practical from the terrorist's POV?
1) Bring 500 tons of TNT into a guarded, monitored, secure territory that is in the middle of nowhere. Take your time to deploy these 500 tons by hand through narrow service corridors. Install charges near a meter-thick reactor vessel that is designed to survive just such explosions. Detonate the thing and scare all the nearby rabbits because the powerplant is so far from anything of value.
2) Divide 500 tons of TNT into 500 pieces, load onto 500 trucks, freely drive those trucks into unprotected cities and explode at will. Carnage and terror will ensue.
This, they're idiots. First they sold off our national energy company to the french, causing prices to skyrocket so we now pay the second highest price for our energy of all of europe (only Ireland beat us.) Now they're closing down the only reliable local source of energy we have which will force further imports and further price rises. They did pretty much the same with our banks too, selling to the french who then sucked them dry and left us with the bankruptcy and the costs. Oh and our national airline, ... Belgium's politicians are totally corrupt, or at best hopelessly incompetent. And people wonder why we haven't been able to form a new government for more than 500 days now.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
I'll agree on the bombs part, but "boiling water" seems a mite simplified for "powering whatever the hell we want with electricity". Or were you expecting us to have proton beams and fusion factories by now? Just what else can you do with decaying plutonium?
The crux of the nuclear industry is that old plants are already paid for and depreciated. They are far more profitable than new plants. Also, safety measures cost money, so a profit maximizing business will try to minimize safety measures where possible (including building safer new plants). When things do go wrong, things are so bad that the government has to bail out the owners (just like the banks), so they face limited downside risk with the old plants.
I am afraid you give way too much credit to the anti-nuke movement, and way too little credit to corporate greed.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Take heart, Belgians! Once your country goes dark and cold, no worries! Take all your money and move south. I think there will be a great sale on Mediterranean real estate soon, and you won't need as much heat to keep warm in the winters. You will have to learn a new alphabet, but learning greek will be a piece of cake, compared to what your grand children will have to learn - Chinese!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Not to mention the power companies (Electrabel ) :
We are still paying for the nuclear plants to be payed of earlier ( although they are already payed off for years now ).
Yet they barely investing that money in green energy.
On the contrary : they are charging their customers, for the loss of revenue due to people placing solar panels on their roofs ( because they have to pay them green certificates, because they themselves don't reach the required quota and would have to pay fines).
So the people who actually care about the environment and place solar panels, are getting a bad name, because the other people have to pay for it.
It's a form of 'divide and conquer' : have the people fight each other, and they won't be strong enough to fight the real culprits .
Slipping shoelaces ?
There was a very nice disclaimer though, which went something like "if alternatives can be found to replace the power plants". Without going with coal/oil (and Belgium is not very rich in hydro), there are not that many solid options. Effectively they are saying to the public that "yes we will turn them off" but in reality they are saying "yeah, we will turn them off (but you know... there are no realistic alternatives, so we will just kick the can in front of us and make a decision later)".
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
It's ingenious really. Politicians get to say they killed nuclear power (15 years from now) so they appease the anti-nuke crowd. Pro-nukes wins either way, if reactors are replaceable and some technology does come along then we get cheap clean energy anyway, if not then the nukes stay around.
Unless we find an alternative it's essentially pro-nuke legislation dressed up as greenpeace.
Having seen a Belgian energy bill, I can't say I fully agree. The price per kWh is not that high, however Electrabel charges something like 10 times the normal price as network connection fees. Which means that the end bill is a LOT higher than for the average European. The end result for the consumer (some of the highest bills to the electrical companies) is the same, but the devil is in the detail.
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
I assume you are not from Europe? In the state in Germany where I live (Germany is a federation like the US), the percentage of renewable energy in the mix already is at 55%, and that happened without any coordinated strategy by the state. It is assumed that the percentage will rise to 65% in the next few years. Belgium is geographically quite similiar to Northern Germany, so I assume completly going renewable really is a viable option for them.
I didn't say anything about Germany as a whole, but only about one state in Germany. The 55% stems from print publication of an employer organisation. They state to have it online here: http://www.rostock.ihk24.de/share/flip/Oktober2011/index.html But it's flash, which I don't have installed here, so I can only guess. Look for the editorial, second page IIRC.
I'm from Belgium and on my electric bill there is a list of energy sources from which my electricity is made of. Nuclear only has a 2% portion. Most of the energy comes from renewable energy. And that's even for the standard energy plan, and not the green energy plan, my provider is offering. Even the largest energy provider, Electrabel (which is in French hands: GDF Suez), only uses about 5% nuclear for their energy. Most people think of nuclear energy as being clean. And that's true as there is no emission of damaging gases or something. But what about the nuclear waste that has to be stored for a few thousands of years (although this is only a theoretical assumption). We can't keep shoving our problems into the ground and putting them off for later. It's time to start thinking of the future.
Hmm. Chernobyl, Fukushima. Nuclear power plants haven't been operating for 20,000 years. I think the odds of an accident are a little better than you think, and those are just the two biggies that have happened within recent memory.
Here's the bottom line: When there's a profit motive, corners will be cut, and accidents will happen. Period. The difference is, when an accident happens at a nuclear power plant, it contaminates the environment for hundreds of square miles. When an accident happens in a solar panel farm, a panel falls down and breaks.
Nuclear power has proven itself neither safe nor practical (we still don't know what the fuck to do with the waste, burying it for 10,000 years doesn't do it for me.) Alternatives to coal, oil and nuclear must be found. Actually, they already have, it's just that Big Oil / Coal / insert big multinational conglomerate here lobby them to death.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Excuse me, but just because someone disagrees with you regarding the use of nuclear power, doesn't mean you can label them as reacting to "hysteria and foolishness". There are real, rational and coherrent concerns regarding nuclear power. If you disagree with that, then fine, but please don't simply label your opposition as hysterical or foolish.
There is no -1 disagree
France has some of the most experience in nuclear power at both the technical and the regulatory level. To boot, the political landscape is a lot more nuclear friendly, probably due to the high social status afforded to engineers (which tend to be pro-nuclear) in French culture. In economics, this is called a comparative advantage.
This means that international trade (of energy) is rational.
National security is a valid argument against trade, but in a tightly knit international community such as the EU, people are more friendly to the idea that engaging international trade is SUPPOSED to be stressed more than securing yourself against your neighbors. Their decision is rational.
"but nobody has died from Fukushima"
By that same definition, people smoking tobacco and breathing in asbestos right now have not died, so those substances are perfectly safe, right? That argument has worked for those respective industries for a while. What are you going to do when people smarten up to the delayed incubation trick? Just move to the next talking point, I suppose . . .
"From JUST West Virginia"
Because we all know that every state has identical levels of coal mining . . . But, really, mining? Because we all know that there are absolutely no risks to uranium mining. Oh, and there are absolutely no additional risks to residents close to uranium mines that residents close to coal mines don't have to worry about . . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!