DEAR News Of The Area,

The Federal Opposition often boasts that nuclear reactors supposedly operate for 80 to 100 years.

In actual fact, no nuclear reactor has ever lasted more than 60 years.

The average age of currently operating plants is only 32 years.

The average age of 212 shutdown nuclear reactors in 2023 was just 28.2 years.

Most nuclear power plants need to be refurbished after 30 years.

Recently, Darlington Nuclear Power Plant in Ontario, Canada required expensive refit of its four reactors after only 26 years of operation.

These repairs will take at least 10 years, at a cost of $CAD12.8 billion (AU $14 billion).

The world’s oldest nuclear reactor is the 55 year old Beznau-1 in Switzerland, which has suffered several outages and “incidents”, including radiation exposure of two workers in 2009. The reactor was shut down from mid 2015 to March 2018, following the discovery of 1000 holes, cracks and indentations around the reactor pressure vessel.

Four more reactor incidents occurred following the reopening in 2018.

Australia cannot afford these dangerous, expensive nuclear plants, especially when we have abundant safer alternative energy sources.

Regards,
Kenneth HIGGS,
Raymond Terrace.