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Last year, after the tsunami and reactor meltdown in Fukushima,Japan, many European nations decided to phase out their existingfleets of nuclear power plants. Germany and Belgium are aiming toend all atomic generation by 2030. Switzerland is shooting for2035. Not so easy to get rid of. (Jean-Pierre Clatot - AFP/GETTY IMAGES) Yet the mere act of shutting down those reactors is going to posea huge challenge in the years ahead. According to a new report from GlobalData, Europe is on track to decommission nearly 150nuclear power plants in the next two decades. Some, like those inGermany, are being mothballed for political reasons. Others, inFrance and Britain, are simply getting old. Yet dismantling anuclear reactor is an arduous, time-consuming task —typically costing between $400 million and $1 billion per plant.And it"s not clear that Europe is fully prepared for theonslaught of retirements. In a recent issue of New Scientist, Fred Pearce offered a handy step-by-step guide on how to take apart a nuclear reactor.There are thousands of tons of radioactive material to deal with— not just the spent fuel rods, but also various materials that have pickedup lower levels of radioactivity. That includes, potentially, thereactor vessel, the fuel-rod casings, various bits of scrap metaland even old clothing. That waste can"t just be carted off toregular landfills; it needs to be disposed of properly. ( Here"s a graphic breaking down the various types of waste.) Very broadly speaking, there are three main ways (pdf) to decommission a nuclear reactor. The first option is toremove the fuel, disassemble the surrounding structure and find asafe place to store all the different radioactive bits. One problemwith this option? Not every country in Europe currently has properwaste facilities set up, Pearce reports. Alternatively, workers could simply take out the fuel, drain theplumbing and then lock up the reactor, letting the isotopes decayuntil the plant itself is less radioactive. After 10 to 80 years,the whole structure will be easier to dismantle. The third option,meanwhile, is to bury the reactor in a "tomb" ofconcrete and hope that no one cracks the structure open for thenext 1,400 years. The U.S. Department of Energy took this approach for two old reactors at Savannah River in South Carolina. All of these methods are time-intensive. As of 2012, some 138nuclear reactors have been shut down (pdf) around the world, but only 17 have been fullydecommissioned. It took England two full decades to finish itsdecommissioning of the Sellafield site after the nuclear reactorthere was shut off in 1981. What"s more, the process is costly: GlobalData estimates thatit will cost at least $81 billion to decommission Europe"sreactors between now and 2030, with the biggest markets in Franceand Russia. Pearce suggests that some countries, such as Britain,may not currently have enough money budgeted for the task —in part because many of its reactors are custom-built and likely tocost more than expected to tear apart. These sorts of headaches could be one reason why the United Statesis taking a different approach to its aging plants. The GlobalDatareport notes that U.S. utilities and regulators have announcedplans to extend the lives of 71 nuclear reactors by another 20years. Between now and 2030, only five U.S. commercial powerreactors are expected to be decommissioned. (That"s inaddition to the 28 commercial reactors that the United States hasalready shut down.) Granted, the United States still has plenty of challenges —as Matthew Wald recently detailed for the New York Times, funds for decommissioning are lagginghere, as well. But those problems are somewhat smaller than whatEurope will be facing in the next two decades. The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as Mirror Brackets , Wiring Harness Machine Manufacturer, and more. For more , please visit Solar Guard Window Film today!
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