Belgium’s Doel 1 nuclear reactor permanently closed

After fifty years of power production, the Doel 1 nuclear reactor was shut down on Friday evening. After Doel 3 in 2022 and Tihange 2 in 2023, the third Belgian nuclear reactor has also been switched off. Doel 2 will follow on November 30th. Operator Engie reported the final shutdown.

The reactor had been running longer than planned because Belgian legislation initially provided for a shutdown after forty years of power production. The Michel government decided in 2015 to add another ten years.

A shutdown phase of approximately five years will start, during which, among other things, the fuel will be cooled. Dismantling and final demolition will then take another ten years. Ultimately, the site will be prepared for new industrial activities.

More expensive than renewables

The new federal Minister of Energy, Mathieu Bihet (MR), appears to be a proponent of nuclear energy, writes the newspaper De Morgen. Nuclear energy would save our industry and make energy production greener. But that line of thinking does not seem to be correct.

First and foremost, conventional nuclear power plants are not a quick solution. Finding a suitable location, getting a permit, reassuring the neighbors, carrying out construction, and finding an operator can easily take ten to fifteen years.

Moreover, classical nuclear energy is costly. Electricity from new nuclear power stations is more expensive than electricity from onshore wind, solar, and offshore wind energy, even if we include the costs of distribution, storage, and flexibility required.

‘Nuclear power plants make us structurally dependent’

The distribution costs for nuclear energy are also surprisingly high. On the other hand, renewable energy is evolving toward a distributed model, where part of the energy only needs to be moved locally.

Finally, nuclear power plants also use fuel. And for this, we are dependent on uranium from Russia, the United States, several African countries, and Australia. The number of suppliers is much more limited than for oil and gas, while we install wind turbines and solar panels ourselves and can make them ultimately ourselves if necessary. Nuclear power plants make us structurally dependent.

According to Koen Schoors, economist and professor at Ghent University, the only nuclear power plant that makes sense is a small modular reactor that can produce flexibly and be used as reserve capacity to ensure security of supply further.