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."

Comments

Re:idiots.

[couchslug]

"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.

Re:idiots.

[Mashiki]

Pretty hard with old reactors. You require something catastrophic to happen. Pretty close to impossible for new designs that use passive cooling systems.