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Unplanned closures do happen.


As a real nuclear example that closed unexpectedly but without a dramatic incident, Dungeness B power station in the UK.


September 2018 both units were shut down for repairs and substantial work did get underway.


June 2021 the owner announced that the plant was now permanently closed, effective immediately (well, effective almost 3 years prior in practice), would never return to operation and would instead more immediately to defueling and decommissioning which is now in progress.


For a non-nuclear example here in Australia, Hunter Valley gas turbines.


Last operation was in early 2020 followed by an outage for repairs.


In October 2021 the owners submitted the relevant paperwork to formally close the plant on the grounds that repairs and returning to service had turned out to be uneconomic. Permission was granted to officially close on 16 December 2021 and the facility was indeed officially closed at midnight 31 December 2021. That's the "official" closure but in practice it last ran in early 2020, hasn't operated since and will not operate again.


Plenty more examples like that where either a planned inspection or work to fix some fault finds a major problem that's simply uneconomic to repair given the age and remaining life expectancy of the facility or it's old and being "run into the ground" until the next major maintenance is required then it's game over.


That's without there needing to be any kind of major incident although that can of course also happen - plenty of examples of that, thankfully mostly with non-nuclear facilities. :2twocents


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