Nuclear energy in Belgium

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Commercial nuclear power plants in Belgium:
Red pog.svg In operation Decommissioned
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The nuclear energy in Belgium is operated currently (December 2017) at two sites with a total of seven reactor units and an installed capacity of 6,183 MW gross. The first reactor BR1 (Belgian Reactor 1) was commissioned in 1956. The first purely commercially used reactor block went into operation in 1974. Nuclear energy contributed around 54% of total electricity generation in Belgium in 2011 . In 2018, 2019 and 2020 it was 31.2%, 48.7% and 39.1%.

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Until 1974

Atomium

As early as 1913, uranium ore was discovered in Haut-Katanga in what was then the Belgian Congo . The ore deposits found in the Shinkolobwe Mine were exceptionally rich. The uranium was mined by the Union Minière du Haut Katanga (UMHK). Even before World War II, the United States expressed an interest in this uranium ore. However, it was not until 1942 that the USA requested uranium for the Manhattan Project . Because of its colonies , Belgium was one of the few countries with a substantial supply of uranium ore, making it the main supplier to the United States. This trading relationship resulted in Belgium gaining access to nuclear technology for civil purposes. The civil use of nuclear energy in Belgium goes back to the initiative of Pierre Ryckmans and the Atomic Energy Act of the USA of 1946.

In 1952 this led to the establishment of the Study Center for Nuclear Energy . The first BR1 reactor (Belgian Reactor 1) was commissioned in Mol in 1956 . Construction of the BR2 began the following year.

In 1958 the Atomium in Brussels was completed as a symbol of the atomic age and the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

In 1962 the very first pressurized water reactor was commissioned on European soil. The BR-3 in Mol was an American license from Westinghouse Electric Company and had only a low thermal reactor output; it served from the beginning for research purposes, but was also used commercially to generate electricity.

From 1967 to 1974, Eurochemic also operated a reprocessing plant in Mol .

In 1969 the construction of the first purely commercial reactor block at the Doel nuclear power plant began.

Commercial nuclear energy production began when Units 1 and 2 of the Doel nuclear power plant and Unit 1 of the Tihange nuclear power plant went into operation in 1974 and 1975. They were followed by four more power plant units at the same locations in the 1980s.

Until 2011

In 1986 a factory for the production of MOX fuel elements for commercial nuclear power plants was put into operation in Dessel , which also serves abroad.

On June 30, 1987, the oldest pressurized water reactor on European soil, the BR-3, was shut down.

In 1999, the Verhofstadt I government , consisting of the Liberals ( Vlaamse Liberalen en Democrats and Mouvement Réformateur ), the Socialists ( Sociaal Progressief Alternatief and Parti Socialiste ) and the Greens ( Groen! And Ecolo ), stipulated a 40-year lifetime limit for Belgian reactors and refused to build new nuclear power plants. A bill that provided for the country to phase out nuclear energy by 2025 was approved by the House of Representatives on December 6, 2002 and also adopted by the Senate on January 16, 2003.

Two accidents or incidents ( INES 3 and 4 ) in a nuclear radiochemical industrial plant in Fleurus made headlines in the 2000s .

In spring 2003 there were new elections. The Greens were no longer involved in the Verhofstadt II government . In September 2005 it decided to partially reverse the decision it had previously made. The withdrawal period was extended by 20 years, and an option for further extensions of the total term was kept open. It remained unclear whether new nuclear power plants will be built. The reason for the decision was that it was unrealistic to replace the electricity that is generated by nuclear power plants. According to this view, the only two realistic alternatives were to build several oil and / or coal-fired power plants or to import electricity from abroad. While the first option contradicts the instructions of the Kyoto Protocol , the second appeared to be more expensive than operating the nuclear power plants.

This was one of the main reasons to reverse the phase-out because it seemed impossible to get more than half of the electricity from renewable energies . The share of renewable energies in Belgium was only around 3–4% at the time. The country was aiming to convert 13% of its energy consumption to renewable energies by 2020. In the meantime, however, Belgium has been able to increase the share of renewable energies to around 9% (2017).

Further development

In response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster , the governing parties agreed in 2011 that all seven Belgian nuclear power plant units should be switched off successively from 2015, as had already been laid down in a 2003 law on the nuclear phase-out . Due to the massive power outage, this exit date was later called into question again.

In October 2011, the new government agreed to implement the nuclear phase-out from 2015 as originally planned. The government plan stipulated that all nuclear power plants should be closed by 2025 at the latest.

Cracks in the pressure vessels of the Doel-3 and Tihange-2 reactors were found in November 2012 , whereupon the reactors were shut down. After a repair, they were reconnected in June 2013, but temporarily shut down again in March 2014 due to the same problem by order of the Agency for Nuclear Control. In August 2014 there was severe turbine damage in the Doel-4 reactor due to oil loss. The reactor was unable to generate electricity until December 2014.

As a result of this failure, over 50% of the output of the nuclear power plants or around 25% of the total output of all Belgian power plants were not available and there was growing concern about a power bottleneck in Belgium or even a blackout . The Michel II government therefore decided on December 18, 2014, analogous to a decision taken earlier for the Tihange-1 reactor, to extend the service life of the two older reactors in Doel (Doel-1 and Doel-2) by ten years until 2025 extend. At the same time, the responsible energy minister, Marie-Christine Marghem, speculated about a fundamental role for nuclear energy in Belgium even after 2025. However, the Doel-1 reactor was taken off the grid in February 2015 because the Belgian nuclear supervisory authorities did not have a permit to continue operating . As in the Doel-3 and Tihange-2 plants, power operation was resumed in December 2015, despite cracks and safety concerns, among other things. due to material defects in the steel used for the reactor pressure vessel. The German government expressed "emphatic" concerns about the resumption. On the other hand, the Belgian nuclear power plants are supplied with fuel elements from German uranium factories in Gronau and Lingen . This means that the seven Belgian reactors are back on the grid, with the intention of continuing to operate them until at least 2025.

Since only one nuclear reactor was connected to the grid from October 2018 due to maintenance work and bottlenecks in the power supply were feared, the responsible energy minister, Marie-Christine Marghem, asked for electricity to be supplied from Germany. For this purpose, a direct was high-voltage line in HVDC technology under the name Alegro completed in late 2020th The country has been importing electricity from neighboring countries for years.

Decommissioning decision

On December 23, 2021, the Belgian De Croo government announced that the two nuclear power plants in Doel and Tihange would be shut down permanently from 2022 until 2025. The subsequent dismantling of the nuclear facilities should be completed by 2045. The seven coalition partners in the Belgian government had disagreed over the treatment of nuclear energy and had set the final deadline for a decision on this issue in 2021. While the Greens ( Ecolo , Groen ) called for a rapid nuclear phase-out and for the energy gap to be covered by newly built gas-fired power plants, politicians from the Walloon Mouvement Réformateur and others criticized the resulting dependence on Russian gas supplies and the increased greenhouse gas emissions. The government-internal compromise also provides 100 million euros in funding for research into the development of smaller modular nuclear reactors .

List of nuclear reactors in Belgium

List of nuclear power plants in Belgium (source: IAEA, as of November 2019)
Surname block
 Reactor type model status Net
power
in MW
 Gross
power
in MW
 start of building First network
synchronization 		Commercial
operation
(planned)
 Switching off
processing
(planned)
 Feed-
in in TWh
BR-3 nuclear power plant 1 PWR Prototype Shut down 10 12th 11/01/1957 10/10/1962 10/10/1962 06/30/1987 0.76
Doel 1 PWR WH 2LP In operation 433 454 07/01/1969 08/28/1974 02/15/1975 2025 128.88
2 PWR WH 2LP In operation 433 454 09/01/1971 08/21/1975 December 01, 1975 2025 127.08
3 PWR WH 3LP In operation 1006 1056 01/01/1975 06/23/1982 10/01/1982 2022 241.55
4th PWR WH 3LP In operation 1038 1090 December 01, 1978 April 8, 1985 07/01/1985 2025 245.97
Tihange 1 PWR Frame atoms In operation 962 1009 06/01/1970 07.03.1975 10/01/1975 2025 284.63
2 PWR WH 3LP In operation 1038 1055 04/01/1976 10/13/1982 06/01/1983 2023 244.38
3 PWR WH 3LP In operation 1038 1089 11/01/1978 06/15/1985 09/01/1985 2025 258.41
  1. ↑ Framatome 3 loops reactor

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ German Atomic Forum - World Report 2011 (PDF file - 0.5 MB)
  2. ↑ Belgium's electricity mix in 2020: Renewable generation up 31% in a year marked by the COVID-19 crisis. (pdf) ELIA , January 7, 2021, p. 3 , accessed on December 23, 2021 (English).
  3. ↑ 1952–2002 - Brochure on the 50th anniversary of the Belgian Nuclear Research Center ( Memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), page 6
  4. ↑ BR1 - 50th Anniversary - The very first beginning (English) ( Memento from April 5, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ^ BR1 - 50th Anniversary - The personnel (English) ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ^ Co-ordination Network on Decommissioning of Nuclear Installations (CND). BR3 Nuclear Power Plant ( Memento from January 30, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ https://www.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/ReactorDetails.aspx?current=9
  8. ↑ An Essential Program to Underpin Government Policy on Nuclear Power ( Memento of September 5, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) on scientific-alliance.org (English, PDF; 198 KB) Retrieved on August 24, 2015.
  9. ↑ Expansion targets for renewable energies according to Eurostat
  10. ↑ Out for seven reactors: Belgium wants to get out of nuclear power from 2015. Spiegel online politics. accessed on March 11, 2015.
  11. ↑ Electricity production: Belgium shuts down third nuclear reactor. Spiegel Online Wissenschaft.Retrieved March 11, 2015.
  12. ↑ Out for seven reactors. Belgium wants to phase out nuclear power from 2015 . In: Spiegel-Online. October 31, 2011. Retrieved October 31, 2011.
  13. ↑ Belgium's nuclear power plants are failing . In: Swiss radio and television . August 14, 2014. Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  14. ↑ Electricity production: Belgium shuts down third nuclear reactor. In: Spiegel-Online . August 15, 2014. Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  15. ↑ Two Belgian nuclear reactors before their final shutdown? . In: heise.de , August 20, 2014. Retrieved August 20, 2014.
  16. ↑ Marghem: Nuclear power an option even after 2025 . In: Belgischer Rundfunk online, December 19, 2015. Accessed February 17, 2015.
  17. ↑ Belgischer Rundfunk: FANK gives the green light to restart Doel 3 and Tihange 2 , November 17, 2015.
  18. ↑ BT-Drs. 18/7220 : Answer from the Federal Government, crack findings in the Belgian nuclear power plants Doel 3 and Tihange 2 as well as the extension of the service life of Doel 1 and Doel 2
  19. ↑ Ilse Tweer: Flawed Reactor Pressure Vessels in the Belgian NPPS Doel 3 and Tihange 2. Comments on the FANC Final Evaluation Report 2015 ( Memento of March 12, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF).
  20. ↑ https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Hendricks-will-Uranfabriken-schliessen-article19775344.html
  21. ↑ Belgium is threatened with an electricity blackout
  22. ↑ Alegro: First direct power line between Germany and Belgium in operation. In: IWR Online. International Economic Forum for Renewable Energies, November 10, 2020, accessed on October 22, 2021 .
  23. ^ Barbara Moens, Camille Gijs: Belgium's nuclear feud threatens to split ruling coalition. In: Politico . October 11, 2021, accessed December 23, 2021 .
  24. ↑ Belgium agrees to close controversial aging nuclear reactors. In: BBC News. December 23, 2021, accessed December 23, 2021 .
  25. ↑ Belgium. IAEA , accessed November 27, 2019 .