Lifetime Extension
The original 30-year lifetime of the four blocs will begin to run out in 2012. As Hungary lacks energy resources and relies heavily on the power plant, it has committed to a 20-year lifetime extension.
In 2000, the Paks Nuclear Power Plant commissioned a feasibility study which concluded that the plant may remain in operation for another 20 years. The study was updated in 2005 with similar conclusions.
In November 2005, Hungary's Parliament passed a resolution with overwhelming bipartisan majority to support the lifetime extension.
The feasibility study concluded that the non-replaceable parts are in sufficient condition to remain in operation for another 20 years while a minority of replaceable parts needed replacement or refurbishment.
The power generator made repeated surveys of public opinion on the lifetime extension and concluded that support for the decision hovered near 70%.
Following the Fukushima I nuclear accidents in March 2011, Hungary's government said it would conduct a stress test on the Paks Nuclear Power Plant to assess safety, but it would not abandon plans for lifetime extension and it would also go ahead with plans for its expansion.
Read more about this topic: Paks Nuclear Power Plant
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“The motive of science was the extension of man, on all sides, into Nature, till his hands should touch the stars, his eyes see through the earth, his ears understand the language of beast and bird, and the sense of the wind; and, through his sympathy, heaven and earth should talk with him. But that is not our science.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)