Belgium has dropped nuclear phaseout plans adopted over two decades ago. Previously, it had delayed the phaseout for 10 years over the energy uncertainty triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Belgium’s parliament on Thursday voted to drop the country’s planned nuclear phaseout.
In 2003, Belgium passed a law for the gradual phaseout of nuclear energy. The law stipulated that nuclear power plants were to be closed by 2025 at the latest, while prohibiting the construction of new reactors.
In 2022, Belgium delayed the phaseout by 10 years, with plans to run one reactor in each of its two plants as a backup due to energy uncertainty triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
This stay, IMO, the big question mark. At which point does maintaining an aged machine is more expensive than building new one. Especially when 20 years are needed to build a new one (including 10 years of legal paperwork, trials and appeals)
It doesn’t need to take that long. The reason it sometimes does is almost always because laws are payed for by dirty energy companies to make it harder to build them. They manufacture barriers and discontent around nuclear to protect themselves, even though they release far more radioactive waste, and don’t even have to capture and control it.
If they want to get serious about nuclear power, they could get it done in 5 years. If they just want a small plant then it could be a fraction of that even.