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The Maas river at the Tihange plant in Belgium beat its projected 1000-year maximum by a sizable percentage this year, using up about half of the plant's safety
by dividedbyzero 5y ago
The Maas river at the Tihange plant in Belgium beat its projected 1000-year maximum by a sizable percentage this year, using up about half of the plant's safety margin. Climate change makes such events harder to predict and if such a thing were to happen during construction, you'd absolutely have to reconsider flooding defenses while you still can, anything else would be irresponsible. This sort of cutting corners to essentially make these plants more profitable is (in part) what gives nuclear such a bad rep. Given that several of our supposedly invulnerable plants had serious incidents, I'd say we're still pretty bad at designing and running these things, and in no position to skimp on safety.
- nickff 5y ago>"Given that several of our supposedly invulnerable plants had serious incidents, I'd say we're still pretty bad at designing and running these things, and in no position to skimp on safety." The plants that have had issues were known to be the oldest and most vulnerable ones.
- tremon 5y agoAlso, re: Tihange: the reactors at Tihange were designed for 40 years of operation, so Tihange 1 should have been shut down in 2015 (and Tihange 2 should be a year from now). If the operator and the Belgian government had adequate planning skills, a replacement reactor (or other power generator) should have been completed by then, and the new reactor could have been built using updated safety margins. Tihange is a good example of the same political inaction that gave us this climate crisis. It has nothing to do with cutting corners, nor about "designing and running these things". It is (political) complacency, not mismanagement of the plant that's the main problem.