Belgium To Give Up Nuclear Power 298
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."
in other news, (Score:2, Insightful)
Here Here! (Score:1, Insightful)
Good for them! Finally, some common sense and rational planning, instead of letting the market get our power from anywhere without regard to the consequences!
Re:Here Here! (Score:3, Insightful)
Only France is not foolish in EU. (Score:5, Insightful)
Russia and France are loving this! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:idiots. (Score:5, Insightful)
"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. (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
!Tautology (Score:4, Insightful)
if (false && false) exit_nukes();
Hope they don't choose coal (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:in other news, (Score:1, Insightful)
Look, I'm not saying the man is a saint or the hero that Gotham deserves, but at least lets not just make up shit out of whole cloth, 'kay?
Re:Sure, just like rare earths (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sure, just like rare earths (Score:4, Insightful)
I am afraid you give way too much credit to the anti-nuke movement, and way too little credit to corporate greed.
Re:A little slow... (Score:3, Insightful)
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)".
Slow and stupid. (Score:2, Insightful)
It's sad to watch whole countries shoot themselves in the foot over hysteria and foolishness. But those are the times we live in: where most countries have adopted a system where any two idiots can outvote an expert, whether those people are rank and file (straight democracy), or holding elected office (republics and so on.) And all this in environments where experts are actually rare.
Re:Only France is not foolish in EU. (Score:2, Insightful)