2011-03-14, 07:30 PM
Anonymous Moose Wrote:Well, why dont you look up the information for the life expectancy of the plant? Maybe ask ABC where they get their facts from and why they say it should have been taken down years ago.
Of course, I'm not asking you to do anything I'm not doing myselfEdit: Not the best source, but its something:
PWR's and BWR's have been licensed for 40 year life, but subject to possible repair work if there are doubts about integrity, especially of the primary pressure circuit. Only two plants have operated more than 30 years in practice. A number have been shutdown as uneconomic to do necessary repairs.
If I'm correct this is by US standards, and this would mean that full 40 years has not been sufficiently tested and that most power plants would stop operating long before the 40 year mark
If you'd look a little further you'd find that 40 years is the target lifespan on most reactors, not the life expectancy. Generally they go through certifications every decade, and then they decide whether it's worthwhile to keep operating them at current efficiency/projected costs. As far as I can ascertain, the actual reactor core is the only part that is not outright replaced over time - the rest of the cooling and external systems are updated or repaired as necessary to keep the reactor up to standards. If it meets those standards, that means it's considered safe to operate, and can be kept running. And nuclear safety standards are probably some of the highest in any energy business.