I saw a DW Planet A documentary about decommissioning a nuclear plant in Germany. They walked around the plant in some safety gear, but with their faces fully exposed and no breathing apparatus. They said the project was decades behind schedule and it was costing ten times as much as expected. The decommissioning process involved spraying water and gels on slightly radioactive materials from the factory to reduce their radioactivity to effectively zero. The process created much more radioactive material than there was in the first place, which then itself had to be dealt with. The cost of decommissioning is determined by the lobbyists for the companies that do the decommissioning. Voters have no idea what decommissioning should cost, and no one will ever question going over budget. It's a great business.
"
EDF Group assumes sole financial responsibility for decommissioning power plants. The cost is factored into operation from the start and included in the price of the kilowatt-hour. It is re-assessed every three years to take account of changing technical and financial assumptions, as required by law.
"
The 100% state owned EDF group take sole responsibility for the finances? What a relief for the taxpayers of France...
But at least the cost is factored in from the start. Those costs often double during construction but at least we know the decommissioning costs are factored into the fake numbers they use to get approval to start builds.
Just declare that LNT is wrong and treat materials as non radioactive if they are less than half the radiation level associated with cancer. For the rest you can try and reuse them in new reactors if possible or store it in the same place as other nuclear waste.
We've got the technology to drill deep bore holes, kilometers below where water will move on any time relevant to human existence, where we could stick what small amounts of dangerous material is left.
Encapsulating the waste and burying it somewhere on an abyssal plain in the deep ocean should also be a pretty low-risk approach, the IAEA has looked into variations of that.
Like someone else said, I think it's all expensive because some people want it to be.
technically speaking they don't have to be decomissioned and when they absolutely have to be I believe at that point we will have fusion which is only 10 years away.
That was infact the joke, but surely by the time this would need to be decomissioned we would have fusion power right? Some reactors we operate today are older than the oldest people on the planet!
Why people spread such bullshit statements? Take Germany which enacted EARLY phaseout, yet all it's reactors are decommissioned on operator money except experimental and soviet units
I remember reading about coal-fired power plants specifically in Poland, which exceed the radioactivity levels for nuclear plants. This because the burnt-off coal contains small amounts of radioactive elements, which form particles and drop off near the flue.
But of course there are no norms for max radioactivity levels at a coal power plant site.
Coal plants spread radioactivity because it concentrates all the radioactive elements naturally found in the coal into ash, much of which then gets released into the air, deposited on surfaces and breathed in, which is extremely harmful.
But if decommissioned properly, most of the ash inside the building can be collected and mixed into soil and bricks at a safe concentration not far above background radiation level.
In a nuclear power plant, there is no release of radioactive materials, but it’s possible for parts of the structure to absorb radiation and become radioactive itself, and that’s much harder to deal with.
Steel is not vitrified, only high level nuclear waste - spend nuclear fuel with highly radioactive fission products.
Steel is taken apart and measured, non-activated steel can be melted down and recycled. Activated steel has to go into storage, either low level nuclear or medium level nuclear waste.
The biggest concern for steel is cobalt. During manufacturing steel with very low cobalt content is usually used for nuclear applications, but there is still small amount of cobalt.
In reactor, under neutron radiation, stable cobalt-59 changes to cobalt-60, strong gamma ray emitter with a half-life of 5 years. So neutron activated steel has to storage for at least few decades.
When done not properly, this is a health hazard.
"
Circa 1983, construction was finished of 1700 apartments in Taiwan which were built with steel contaminated with cobalt-60. About 10,000 people occupied these buildings during a 9–20 year period. On average, these people unknowingly received a radiation dose of 0.4 Sv. Some studies have found that this large group did not suffer a higher incidence of cancer mortality, as the linear no-threshold model would predict, but suffered a lower cancer mortality than the general Taiwan public. These observations support the radiation hormesis model, however other studies have found health impacts that confound the results.
"
Have a look at this nuclear plant in Northern Germany that is in the process of being decomissioned since 1995. It's still not finished, suspected end date is now in the 2040s and is now projected to cost about 10B €. For a single plant.
Surely that's not because the people in power - the same people who have pushed trhough the decommissioning of these still functioning power plants - are want them to be expensive to decomission because it suits their agenda. Decomissioning costs can always be however high you want them to be but that doesn't mean that they have to be. Worst case you can just encase the whole thing in concrete until radiation levels naturally drop.
Yes, a lot of that is just waiting for the active parts to get less 'hot' though. But yes it's incredibly expensive and it's only going to get more so as we start caring more about pollution and proliferation.
I saw a DW Planet A documentary about decommissioning a nuclear plant in Germany. They walked around the plant in some safety gear, but with their faces fully exposed and no breathing apparatus. They said the project was decades behind schedule and it was costing ten times as much as expected. The decommissioning process involved spraying water and gels on slightly radioactive materials from the factory to reduce their radioactivity to effectively zero. The process created much more radioactive material than there was in the first place, which then itself had to be dealt with. The cost of decommissioning is determined by the lobbyists for the companies that do the decommissioning. Voters have no idea what decommissioning should cost, and no one will ever question going over budget. It's a great business.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKIaRg3SdTw
Now check how decommissioning is going with Isar reactors instead of soviet ones
Would you like to provide some context?
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" EDF Group assumes sole financial responsibility for decommissioning power plants. The cost is factored into operation from the start and included in the price of the kilowatt-hour. It is re-assessed every three years to take account of changing technical and financial assumptions, as required by law. "
https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/producing-a-climate-frie...
The 100% state owned EDF group take sole responsibility for the finances? What a relief for the taxpayers of France...
But at least the cost is factored in from the start. Those costs often double during construction but at least we know the decommissioning costs are factored into the fake numbers they use to get approval to start builds.
Taxpayers of UK are supporting wind energy producers using CfDs (Contracts for Difference).
UK Eighth Allocation Round are from 20 July to 7 August 2026, Offshore wind £113 /MWh, Onshore wind (>5 MW) £92/MWh
UK Government also awarded a CfD to Hinkley Point C nuclear power station, set at £92.50/MWh for a 35 year period.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contracts_for_Difference_(UK_e...
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Just declare that LNT is wrong and treat materials as non radioactive if they are less than half the radiation level associated with cancer. For the rest you can try and reuse them in new reactors if possible or store it in the same place as other nuclear waste.
We've got the technology to drill deep bore holes, kilometers below where water will move on any time relevant to human existence, where we could stick what small amounts of dangerous material is left.
Encapsulating the waste and burying it somewhere on an abyssal plain in the deep ocean should also be a pretty low-risk approach, the IAEA has looked into variations of that.
Like someone else said, I think it's all expensive because some people want it to be.
And the world leaders don't have an answer for the cost to keep our atmosphere habitable due to using fossil fuels as hard as possible?
> using fossil fuels as hard as possible?
All the data showing that it is still free. There is no cost, generally anthropogenic climate change is increasing the habitability of our atmosphere.
technically speaking they don't have to be decomissioned and when they absolutely have to be I believe at that point we will have fusion which is only 10 years away.
There is no reason to assume that fusion will be a particularly cheap power source.
Fusion has been 10 years away for the past 3 decades.
(I think fusion is great, by the way, but I just don’t believe any timelines at this point anymore)
That was infact the joke, but surely by the time this would need to be decomissioned we would have fusion power right? Some reactors we operate today are older than the oldest people on the planet!
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like zeno's paradox(es).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno_of_Elea
i like how he died. guts.
I see what you did there :D Good one, thank you!
Why people spread such bullshit statements? Take Germany which enacted EARLY phaseout, yet all it's reactors are decommissioned on operator money except experimental and soviet units
What are these decommissioning costs?
The reactor vessel and the primary coolant loop.
All that steel can be vitrified and stored in stainless casks somewhere fairly indefinitely.
Or just buried. It doesn’t stay reactive very long.
The rest of the site is no different to any other electricity generator, and no different really to the average industrial manufacturing plant.
Everyone likes to just say ”decommissioning costs”, without actually thinking about what any of that means.
It’s not like every nuclear power site is a Chernobyl.
I remember reading about coal-fired power plants specifically in Poland, which exceed the radioactivity levels for nuclear plants. This because the burnt-off coal contains small amounts of radioactive elements, which form particles and drop off near the flue.
But of course there are no norms for max radioactivity levels at a coal power plant site.
Coal plants spread radioactivity because it concentrates all the radioactive elements naturally found in the coal into ash, much of which then gets released into the air, deposited on surfaces and breathed in, which is extremely harmful.
But if decommissioned properly, most of the ash inside the building can be collected and mixed into soil and bricks at a safe concentration not far above background radiation level.
In a nuclear power plant, there is no release of radioactive materials, but it’s possible for parts of the structure to absorb radiation and become radioactive itself, and that’s much harder to deal with.
Steel is not vitrified, only high level nuclear waste - spend nuclear fuel with highly radioactive fission products.
Steel is taken apart and measured, non-activated steel can be melted down and recycled. Activated steel has to go into storage, either low level nuclear or medium level nuclear waste.
The biggest concern for steel is cobalt. During manufacturing steel with very low cobalt content is usually used for nuclear applications, but there is still small amount of cobalt.
In reactor, under neutron radiation, stable cobalt-59 changes to cobalt-60, strong gamma ray emitter with a half-life of 5 years. So neutron activated steel has to storage for at least few decades.
When done not properly, this is a health hazard.
" Circa 1983, construction was finished of 1700 apartments in Taiwan which were built with steel contaminated with cobalt-60. About 10,000 people occupied these buildings during a 9–20 year period. On average, these people unknowingly received a radiation dose of 0.4 Sv. Some studies have found that this large group did not suffer a higher incidence of cancer mortality, as the linear no-threshold model would predict, but suffered a lower cancer mortality than the general Taiwan public. These observations support the radiation hormesis model, however other studies have found health impacts that confound the results. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt-60#Steel_contamination
They have to be stored but storage isn't particularly difficult. Just don't built them into a structure where to close to people.
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Have a look at this nuclear plant in Northern Germany that is in the process of being decomissioned since 1995. It's still not finished, suspected end date is now in the 2040s and is now projected to cost about 10B €. For a single plant.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk_Greifswald (you have to translate that page yourself, the English version doesn't contain the relevant information)
Surely that's not because the people in power - the same people who have pushed trhough the decommissioning of these still functioning power plants - are want them to be expensive to decomission because it suits their agenda. Decomissioning costs can always be however high you want them to be but that doesn't mean that they have to be. Worst case you can just encase the whole thing in concrete until radiation levels naturally drop.
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Yes, a lot of that is just waiting for the active parts to get less 'hot' though. But yes it's incredibly expensive and it's only going to get more so as we start caring more about pollution and proliferation.