Nuclear: Belgium confirms the shutdown of the country’s seven reactors in 2025

Published on : 12/23/2021 – 10:58

Belgium will shut down its current seven nuclear reactors as planned by 2025, but is not closing the door to new generation nuclear power, according to an agreement reached on Thursday 23 December between the partners of the government coalition.

A government source confirmed to AFP this agreement reached after a night of negotiations. It provides “an investment of around 100 million euros in research on small modular reactors” (SMR), said this source.

The gradual phase-out of nuclear power has been enshrined in law in Belgium since 2003. The last deadline adopted is the year 2025, a date that the current government has undertaken to respect when it takes office in October 2020.

>> To see: Green energies: the return to favor of nuclear power?

But the dossier divides the ruling coalition, which mainly associates liberals (the family of Prime Minister Alexander De Croo), socialists and environmentalists.

For a month, the French-speaking liberals of the MR, one of the seven parties in the team, warned against the scenario of a complete exit defended by the Minister of Energy, the Flemish ecologist Tinne Van der Straeten.

Around 40% of the electricity produced in Belgium

The liberals called for keeping some of the current nuclear capacities, arguing in particular that the new gas-fired power stations planned to secure the energy supply are too polluting and generate CO2. Nuclear power accounts for around 40% of the electricity produced in Belgium.

Finally, the agreement torn off within the restricted Council of Ministers (the “kern” with a representative of each of the seven parties) stipulates that Belgium will invest “in research on sustainable and CO2-neutral energies” including in the nuclear energy of the future, SMR, reported the French-language channel RTBF.

>> To see: Germany: this radioactive waste that nobody wants

The budget to invest in this type of technology was already planned, according to the government source joined by AFP. “The agreement confirms the investment mechanism put in place to replace the current nuclear which is obsolete,” said the same source.

With AFP