Comment by throw0101c

> So no, CANDU can’t stay online for decades without maintenance and instead have similar downtime issues.

There are several situations:

* refuelling occurs

* maintenance and/or inspection needs to happen

* refurbishment may be desired

Some of these things take downtime, some do not, depending on the design of the reactor and other factors. A blanket statement of "refuelling forces a downtime" is incorrect in many situations. Depending on the maintenance (or inspections) needed, this may or may not need downtime. Refurbishment generally means tearing things apart, so usually means downtime, but if a site has multiple reactors they can be done one at a time, e.g.:

* https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1006993/ontario-delivers-...