My impression was it was a little more political and complicated than that [0]. I mean, if it was technically time to shut down the reactors then somebody obviously screwed up - but Germany isn't a great place to be citing examples from because their government has obviously been a massive headache for anyone planning out a nuclear reactor's lifespan.
> When should a company start saving for a shutdown? In the last days?
It should start when it needs to to have budget + contingency at the time of shut down.
> Germany isn't a great place to be citing examples from because their government has obviously been a massive headache for anyone planning out a nuclear reactor's lifespan.
Really? Worse than anyone else? Looking at the map on Wikipedia, there don’t seem to have been any reactors in East Germany, at least not at the time Fukushima made nuclear a dirty word again, and the post-cold-war political shifts was the only unusual stability issue I could think of.
> My impression was it was a little more political and complicated than that [0]. I mean, if it was technically time to shut down the reactors then somebody obviously screwed up - but Germany isn't a great place to be citing examples from because their government has obviously been a massive headache for anyone planning out a nuclear reactor's lifespan.
In 2000 the phase-out was decided (the negotiations between the companies and the government started in 1998). The nuclear companies didn't do anything to prepare for it, but instead hoped that a government lead by the CDU (conservatives) would cancel it. In 2009 with a government formed between CDU and FDP (market liberals) they got their wish and it seemed their lack of preparing worked. Unfortunately for them in 2011 Fukushima happened and even the CDU couldn't just ignore anymore that the citizens don't like nuclear power very much (They lost Baden-Württemberg to the Greens shortly after, something unthinkable a few years before that) and reinstated the phase-out.
So, no, it's really not more complicated than that. From 2000 on the writing was on the wall and instead of preparing for it the companies just sat on their hands and hoped for the best.
So if they had been diligently saving until 2009, then cleared out their financial buffer in 2010, they would quite reasonably be caught flat-footed in 2011?
What is being described here is a problem, but it is not a technical problem and it is iffy to blame corporate wrongdoing. I've literally done rehab planning; these are short time frames and are clearly being driven by politics not technical planning.
Decommissioning isn't something that gets done for fun. Companies need time. It seems completely reasonable that they borrowed the money to decommissioning rather than having it on hand.
> So if they had been diligently saving until 2009, then cleared out their financial buffer in 2010, they would quite reasonably be caught flat-footed in 2011?
If - sure. And if they hadn't lobbied the CDU/FDP for years to take it back it probably wouldn't have happened. Many ifs. But they didn't save up and they did lobby both parties.
> My impression was it was a little more political and complicated than that
Not really. The shutdown plan was done in 2000 together with the industry. They knew what would happen. But the industry did not believe that this will happen, because they thought there was still enough political support for nuclear power and once the opposition (the conservatives) will be back in power, the nuclear exit would be reversed.
That exactly happened then: The conservatives reversed the exit even though there was much ongoing public protest and the nuclear industry was happy.
Then Fukushima happened and conservatives basically went back to the nuclear exit, because they feared widespread public protests. Merkel was clever: if one can't win, then join the other side.
The oldest and most problematic reactors were closed very fast then. But it was already clear in 2000 that they eventually would go offline before the rest. A few reactors even did not need to be closed, they happened to be already shutdown temporarily because of various problems and regulators then just refused them to be activated again. Example: AKW Krümmel near Hamburg.
Problem: I would not believe that a profit oriented company without being forced puts billions aside for a clean-up. I would also not believe that the money put aside is actually sufficient - given that many costs are probably not calculated into it. Every commercial company will try everything to calculate future costs then as low as possible. Especially multi-billion Euro/Dollar sized monopolists which are a save haven for former politicians.
> Problem: I would not believe that a profit oriented company without being forced puts billions aside for a clean-up
I randomly picked a German utility involved in nuclear; RWE has annual revenues of $40-50 billion [0].
You can rest easy; they have the ability to come up with the money if governments want to insist. You just might need to give them 5-10 years rather than surprising them if you want it to happen economically.
like ten to twenty years? The nuclear exit was agreed on in 2000 and they were given long times to close their reactors.
When should a company start saving for a shutdown? In the last days?