Belgium seeks nationalization of nuclear power plants

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Chipay@reddit

Belgium’s nuclear mess is basically a 25-year chain of bad decisions.

Back in 1999, the Greens pushed for a full nuclear phase-out by ~2020, assuming renewables would replace it. But the Greens never joined government formations again after that and no one else wanted to invest billions just to swap nuclear for other capacity.

Fast forward to 2019: Greens are back, but now Belgium has to close reactors without having enough renewables. The compromise was peak Belgian absurdity: shut down some reactors, keep others for a few more years, and fill the gap with “temporary” gas plants while building wind. Then COVID + Ukraine hit, and suddenly relying more on gas looked like a terrible idea.

Now PM De Wever (pro-nuclear, skeptical of renewables, and not shy about controversial takes like reopening ties with Russia for gas) wants to ramp nuclear back up.

Problem is, all reactors are run by Engie (French), which is already shutting them down and doesn’t want to keep going. They’re fed up with policy flip-flopping and argue renewables are more profitable for them anyway.

So the government’s latest idea: if Engie won’t run them… Belgium will nationalise or operate them itself.

Which raises a ton of questions: what are these reactors even worth now, how much would restarting closed ones cost, can/should the state run nuclear plants, and who would actually operate them?

Interestingly, both the communist PVDA and libertarian Anders voiced support for the idea, so there's that.

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Intelligent_Wafer562@reddit

Nuclear power should count as green and renewable energy.

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Chipay@reddit

It's green but not renewable, since the fuel source is consumed.

Either way, the fact that the government is forced to buy the reactors because the free market no longer wants to operate them should give some hint to the viability of nuclear in the future.

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Intelligent_Wafer562@reddit

Good point, I will edit my comment.

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JavaHomely@reddit

We should be able to recycle and reactivate most of the nuclear waste being thrown out right now, France is doing some of it https://youtu.be/hiAsmUjSmdI

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QuotableMorceau@reddit

the "waste" is usually stored for future use, smart people in the field know policy makers and voters are generally short sighted and prone to panic, so the story is "we store the waste until it's no longer dangerous". For example CANDU reactors use natural uranium (low percentage of fissile uranium), and the spent fuel is perfect for putting into a breeder .

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QuotableMorceau@reddit

fuel can be recycled/produced in breeder reactors, to give you an idea : current fuel sources would last at current consumption 100-130 years, with breeder reactors there is fuel for 10k+ years (this is without using thorium) .

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REKTGET3162@reddit

Everybody other than Germany see nuclear as green already. Germany on the other hand would rather recognize a hydrocarbon as green because they were able to get it cheap. Not anymore though thanks to blown up Nordstream, but I doubt they will ever change their view because that would be admitting they are wrong.

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TheRetenor@reddit

Everybody knows phasing out nuclear before coal and gas was wrong. At the same time, nobody wants to admit that Germany's Nuclear was heavily reliant on Russia while talking about Nord Stream.

Both Nuclear and Gas are bad for Germany. The end of Nuclear in Germany was economically good and the better choice in the long run, even if it was technically and most likely objectively made at the wrong point in time.

If anything, choices between the nuclear exit and now regarding renewables and storage have been horrible. Thank CDU for that. They're also currently showing their best side regarding corruption and stupidity along incompetence again.

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QuotableMorceau@reddit

" end of Nuclear in Germany was economically good" - wut ???!!!! , you mean ditching a basically free baseline energy source ( once you have the reactor it's essentially the cheapest form of energy production) was good for the economy .... by your logic draining some hydro lakes is also good for the economy, as you no longer need to pay for the maintenance of the dam ... God ....

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TheRetenor@reddit

Well, doing the calculations like this you're absolutely correct. The longer the reactors are connected to the grid, the cheaper the WH gets in the long run, writing off build costs over the years.

There are quite a number of problems though:

1) Storage. Burnt fuel needs to be stored and caused costs for years on end and nobody actually knows the cost or for how long those costs arise. Also, it's quite unknown if any problems arise and how huge those might be. Us two we might never know in our lives.

2) Fuel. Germany got the majority of nuclear fuel from russia and Kazakhstan, which in sum were about 40%. Of course it was sonewhat diverse, but those are still two countries you don't want to rely on for baseload energy. It's the same with gas and oil now.

3) Independence. This is basically a corollary from 2.

4) Increasingly expensive maintenance. It gets more expensive over the more the reactors age. Building renewables and storage costs a fraction over time

5) Sunk costs. Also basically a corollary of 4, but with the addition that by phasing out nuclear Germany can build more and more of wind, solar, storage, H2 gen and biofuels by taking the money that is no longer needed for nuclear power.

6) It's never free. Calling it essentially free once the reactor is there is just objectively wrong, and it's been calculated how much cheaper renewables really are: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/publications/studies/DE2024_ISE_Studie_Stromgestehungskosten_Erneuerbare_Energien.pdf

Any serious expert and professor in energy topics agrees that nuclear just isn't the way anymore.

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QuotableMorceau@reddit

The thing is nuclear is in the same category as hydro,coal/gas power plants , they provide baseline energy, solar/wind/gas peaking plants provide the remaining variable energy source, they are totally different energy sources that can't be swapped, this is also why France only has 60-70% nuclear energy share, the rest needs to be from sources that can vary with demand.

Renewables are indeed cheap to deploy/produce, but energy storage has not yet caught up in terms of cost/efficiency, for example a country like Denmark , that relies heavily on wind power, has deals with Norway to store excess energy in hydro batteries, which sadly are geography dependant.

Regarding fuel availability, Uranium mining is not done because it is more convenient to buy if from countries that are willing to do it, it's the same logic as rare earths from China. Countries like Australia, Canada, Poland, Sweden, Ukraine, US also have significant Uranium reserves.

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TheRetenor@reddit

Well yes, there's an argument made for baseline energy, but in terms of storage it's getting better by the day, developement and research in battery tech is sort of speedrunning currently, even if the big break through has (hopefully) yet to come.

There's already a few projects done that show the possibilities, and it's not just hydro dependent, for example: https://www.mwstoragefund.com/

Now of course this would have to be scaled up by quite a margin to be possible for large cities, but for those a variable grid is much more interesting. That would consist of personal battery packs in each house, where the owners can generate solar power, save the exceeds locally and re-release in the evening to even out the power curve and possibly even earn money.

In terms of industry, there is a lot of potential creating H2 buffers for storage and direct usage. For emergency situations, gas power with increasingly large biofuel parts can still be employed by using existing plants.

And yes there is a lot to be done and built, which is mainly a shortcoming of the past 30 years. After the nuclear exit, The Merkel government got lazy as fuck with Russian gas. The current government is also actively making things worse, they are asshats to put it mildly. The Ampel Government did most things right despite what the media framed them to be.

And yes I agree, Lithium mining is kind of similar to the uramium issue, but I'd argue the order of bad environmental impact would be coal > oil > uranium > lithium.

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QuotableMorceau@reddit

Lithium based battery storage is not only expensive, but it has no passive safety whatsoever, so in case of natural disaster they are worse than useless ...

I worked in fuel cells/ PEM H2 electrolysis , the technology is not there yet: it's a fine system if you want to power up a remote weather station or a remote telecommunication tower, it's a totally different beast if you want to produce industrial amounts of Hydrogen to use as energy battery : storage is tricky (the dreaded hydrogen embrittlement for one) , PEM with noble metal catalysts degrade in thousands of hours, and organic based ones even faster, the only country committed to hydrogen is Japan and they are not there yet (they would be selling their technology left and right ...)

Of course there are other mass energy storage solutions: liquid batteries, sodium batteries , molten salts thermal storage etc... but none are yet off-the-shelf for industrial deployment . And when I say not yet ready I mean 10 years to market at least ...

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-HOSPIK-@reddit

They are worthless money pits at this point. The real victims are the taxpayers here

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ThroawayJimilyJones@reddit

They shouldn’t have been sold in the first place. Private don’t want to invest in nuclear as they fear a German scenario. It’s a pain they now have to be bought back, but I guess it’s a necessity

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Chipay@reddit

Just want to point out that Belgian commercial reactors were never owned by the state, so if meant back as in 'back into governmental control' then that's incorrect.

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TheRetenor@reddit

I agree, although it's not just the German scenario but also costs that basically can't be handles by privateers without subsidies anyways.

French Nuclear basically lives and dies by the government as well. It's kind of the price to be paid to run nuclear at all. Private doesn't want and can't do these kind of investments if the will was there.

But yes still, selling it to private is the worst possible move.

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TheRetenor@reddit

The following should be mentioned: After the government already funded research, development and partially building and storage of burnt fuel. Now they're buying back half demolished reactors. Jackpot for private equity.

Of course I'm all in for public ownership of critical infrastructure, water, energy, connectivity, transportation etc. But it does leave a sour taste.

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Tsofuable@reddit

Indeed. And in Sweden the current government is investing heavily in building reactors the companies don't want to build. Even going as far as buying up companies since the guaranteed high prices for the produced electricity and the near zero-cost loans aren't enough. I assume any profits will leave the country immediately and the power will be sold to Germany.