3 ms·
If you close down the old ones before building new ones, you choke the industry. Most of our nuclear energy experts are already 50+. New generations are told t
by cultureswitch 4y ago
If you close down the old ones before building new ones, you choke the industry.
Most of our nuclear energy experts are already 50+. New generations are told that the industry is shrinking (unless you move to the forward-thinking PRC).
Also, it's better to be down for maintenance even for small issues than to play fast and loose. Nuclear safety regulations and agencies are generally well respected, and those frequent maintenance downtimes are a sign of that.
- tfourb 4y agoThere is no nuclear industry in Germany. There are no domestic companies capable of or interested in building a new reactor. Of course there are plenty of physicists, but actual industry experts are getting old, as you yourself noted and I've read stories about nobody wanting to study the relevant stuff at university for more than a decade now. The talent pipeline has run dry years ago. Similar to what is being attempted right now with chip production, you could of course try to spin up all of this infrastructure and the required workforce with a ton of public investment. But why do that when you can build perfectly workable solar/wind power plants in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost? Even if Germany would end up importing nuclear power from France, Poland, UK, Sweden, etc. why try to spend a boatload of money and political capital on an industry that those countries are positioned infinitely better to run? (Given all of these countries' problems with nuclear, I doubt that Germany will end up net importer, but that is beside the point).