5 comments

[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 22.7 ms ] thread
The fuel is one part of it, but there are others. The safety checks have to be done, because the powerplants are old, some are as old as tschernobyl
Likely soon the Germans will ask the Dutch to reopen the Groningen gas fields, which were being shutdown due to the earthquakes and widespread damage to buildings they caused.
FWIW, the operator for a couple of the still-running plants told the local newspaper that preparations to shut down were too far advanced to abort. They'd need to order parts in order to continue staying open, and the lead times on many parts were long, and time was already too short. The wording implied that this was one reason rather than the reason.

That was a few weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Plans can change. War time efforts can put fabrication capacity on the ground if the political will is there. Defense Production Act sort of thing.
Oh, sure, to a degree. Wasn't the Defense Production Act the law that was enacted just after Pearl Harbor and led to a significant increase in production starting about a year later?

Didn't happen in this case though. The possibility wasn't even realistically discussed, which makes me suspect that even though nuclear fans view this as a tractable problem or even a nonproblem, the nuclear operators think it's infeasible.