Comment Re:Time and material (Score 1) 288
The most expensive single part of a nuclear power station is the containment building and support structures for the reactor vessel itself, something that also costs serious bucks. Those are the two parts of a power station that can't be economically replaced during the plant's lifetime. Everything else gets swapped out and replaced over the reactor's lifespan, pretty much. Pumps, steam separators, turbogenerator units, control systems, transformers, switching gear etc. last for a decade or two or three and then get replaced and/or refurbished. It's part of the cost of operating any power plant, the same thing happens with coal and gas plants depending on the hardware involved. A steam turbine turbogenerator set will last 25 or 30 years, for example. In the case of 1970s vintage reactors the old analogue control systems have mostly been upgraded to digital systems with finer control and better reporting, new sensors etc.
As for reusing a site this is being done sometimes but in other cases the grid demands have changed over the decades and a new greenfield site close to a new urban area that's doubled in size in the past fifty years might be better than one closer to, say, a place like Detroit.