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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."
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."
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?
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...
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.