Country profile: Belgium

Summary figures for 2011

The following information is from the NEA publication Nuclear Energy Data, the annual compilation of official statistics and country reports on nuclear energy in OECD member countries.

* Provisional data

Country report

Due to the Fukushima Daiichi accident the Belgian government put on hold its decision of October 2009 to postpone by ten years the phase-out of the three oldest nuclear reactors (see Nuclear Energy Data 2010). At the creation of the new government in the beginning of December 2011, the following decisions were taken:

• The government confirms that it will close the nuclear power plants in conformity with the phaseout law of 2003.
• No later than six months after its creation, the government will elaborate an equipment plan for new production capacity from diversified energy sources in order to assure in a credible way the security of electricity supply in the country in the short, medium and long term.
• The final closure dates of the nuclear power plants will be specified by the government according to the timing of the connection to the grid of this new capacity.

ONDRAF/NIRAS, the Belgian waste management organisation, is preparing the safety file for the integrated project for near-surface disposal of short-lived low- and medium-level waste required by the safety authorities. Before doing this, the government has agreed to submit the safety file to a peer review by the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency. This peer review began before the end of 2011 and is expected to last until July 2012. The recommendations of the peer review will be included in the final document to be submitted to the safety authorities about one year later than originally intended. The integrated project consists of the proposed disposal project and a number of accompanying measures to promote the economic and social development of the region. This disposal project is financed by the waste tariffs. For the financing of the accompanying measures, a law was promulgated at the end of 2009 which foresees a contribution to be paid by the producers on the basis of the waste quantities reserved for them in the disposal facility. Some aspects of the law will be specified in more detail in an upcoming royal decree.

ONDRAF/NIRAS has sent its waste plan (long-term management plan of medium-high level and longlived waste) to the government together with the results of the public consultation and the comments received. The government has taken note of the waste plan and has confirmed that it corresponds to the legal mission of ONDRAF/NIRAS, and that it has fulfilled all other legal requirements and previous government requests. The implementation of the plan requires a governmental decision in principle. Pending such a decision, the government has requested that the following recommendations be implemented:

• Continuation of the R&D on disposal in clay in order to confirm and refine the scientific and technical basis of this solution and to ensure an appropriate level of financing by the producers.
• Specification of an adaptable, participative and transparent phased decision-making process that assures continuity in the development and the implementation of the management solution.
• Development of a proposal for a normative system in order to appropriately frame the implementation of the waste plan (including the creation of an independent supervising body).
• Development of the societal part of the R&D programme that includes assurance that it will be financed.
• Unambiguously and clearly stating requests with respect to operational reversibility and recoverability of the disposed waste, the control required for good functioning of the disposal facility and the associated knowledge transfer.
• Documentation of the evolution of all management options that have been examined but not retained in the waste plan.

In 2010, the Belgian government decided to go ahead with the MYRRHA project of the Nuclear Research Centre SCK-CEN at Mol (an accelerator-driven lead-bismuth cooled, subcritical, fast neutron reactor, intended as a flexible irradiation facility able to work in either subcritical or critical mode). MYRRHA will focus on fuel and material research for innovative reactor systems (fission and fusion) and on the transmutation of high-level radioactive waste. It will also be used as back-up for the production of medical radioisotopes. The government has also decided to provide a subsidy of EUR 60 million for the first detailed design phase of the project. Over the course of 2011 the project has advanced according to schedule.

Source: Nuclear Energy Data 2012

Web links

• Agence Fédérale de Contrôle Nucléaire
• Association Vinçotte Nucléaire
• Bel V
• Electrabel
• Federal Science Policy Office
• Inter-University Institute for High Energies
• Ministère des Affaires Economiques
• Nuclear Research Centre (SCK/CEN)
• ONDRAF/NIRAS (Belgian Agency for Radioactive Waste and Enriched Fissile Materials)
• Institut de Physique Nucleaire Experimentale

Last reviewed: 7 October 2012

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