Considering that most nuclear power plants are designed to last between 30 and 40 years and that the majority of European plants were built between the 1970s and 1990s, the issue of their lifetime extension is at the center of the expert and public debate on nuclear energy in Europe. Lifetime extension refers to the prolongation of the operation of a plant beyond the validity period of the license, the plant’s design life or the period set forth in national laws or regulations.^[1]The climate change emergency and the related need to phase out fossil fuels as fast as possible have only added to the urgency of the issue, more recently compounded by the war in Ukraine and the ensuing desirability of ending European Countries’ dependency on Russian gas.^[2]