| > >Those plants are nearly all close to death. > No, these plants are close to the end of their original grant for exploitation. Many of them get renewed for 10, 20 years easily. The US has had plants renewed for 40 years and are still running just fine. The moving goal post by nuclear proponents never cease to amaze. When we talk about safety the argument is always: "don't look at these old designs, all these modern designs are 100% safe". Then when we talk about cost it is: "don't look at the cost of building new plants, just extend the operation of these 40 year old plants by another 40 years". And the they complain about regulations for nuclear, while at the same time arguing that regulations about decommissioning a plant after its regulated lifetime ran out should not apply to nuclear plants. Why should the rules about safe operation lifetimes not apply to nuclear plants? > > France isnt quite sure what to do. > We know what to do, every single scientist from the ASN knows what to do, every economist knows what to do. The non-renewal of nuclear plants is purely a political play to gain votes. > Stop spreading your ignorant, fearmongering, unsubstantiated opinions. They are not fear mongering or unsubstantiated. Plants were build/commissioned with an expected lifetime. There are reasons for this, aging of components and materials especially under exposure to radiation, aging of computer systems... |
This is only said as an answer to all the people screaming "but Chernobyl was horrible". Old designs are pretty safe too ( especially when terrible bugs like the one that caused Chernobyl are fixed), precisely because they keep getting updated to newer norms during refreshes and refits. There are nuclear power plants out there that were constructed in the 1950s that still work.
OP's point is that most nuclear power plants can have their life extended, at some cost, which is negligible compared to the cost of a new plant, and there's rarely a case where that doesn't make sense ( usually when for some reason the retrofit to update to new standards is too expensive). Why waste that? Prolong the life of existing plants, and build new ones to expand production and eventually replace the old ones.