[Goose]

Germany is now considering keeping its last three nuclear reactors running (they had previously planned to decommission them all after the Fukushima accident). This seems like a no-brainer to me. While, there are some issues in terms of capital expenses for new nuclear plants, it makes absolutely no sense to decommission already running ones.

BC

IMHO it never made any sense to decommission these reactors until a non-CO2 emitting replacement was in place for everything else (including home heating). The decision to do this was driven partly by safety concerns that made no sense IMHO. The German "solution" was to buy electricity from French nuclear reactors. Obviously much safer.
However, keeping the reactors on line isn't as simple as it looks. These reactors were scheduled for shutdown so lots of inspections and preventive maintenance has not been done. These are things you would do to run the reactor another 10 years but that do not affect safety in the near term. Doing these things will cost money, which is bad, but will also require taking the reactor offline at various times, which short term may be worse. Also, as EDF is brilliantly demonstrating, maintenance can uncover other problems that need fixing. This can keep the reactor shut down even longer.
Perhaps we should take another look at the "future" of Diablo Canyon? Despite the progress we have made toward clean energy, we are a long way from being there.

[Goose]

Germany is now considering keeping its last three nuclear reactors running (they had previously planned to decommission them all after the Fukushima accident). This seems like a no-brainer to me. While, there are some issues in terms of capital expenses for new nuclear plants, it makes absolutely no sense to decommission already running ones.

BC

IMHO it never made any sense to decommission these reactors until a non-CO2 emitting replacement was in place for everything else (including home heating). The decision to do this was driven partly by safety concerns that made no sense IMHO. The German "solution" was to buy electricity from French nuclear reactors. Obviously much safer.
However, keeping the reactors on line isn't as simple as it looks. These reactors were scheduled for shutdown so lots of inspections and preventive maintenance has not been done. These are things you would do to run the reactor another 10 years but that do not affect safety in the near term. Doing these things will cost money, which is bad, but will also require taking the reactor offline at various times, which short term may be worse. Also, as EDF is brilliantly demonstrating, maintenance can uncover other problems that need fixing. This can keep the reactor shut down even longer.
Perhaps we should take another look at the "future" of Diablo Canyon? Despite the progress we have made toward clean energy, we are a long way from being there.