Nuclear energy in Belgium

The country’s first commercial nuclear reactor began operating in 1974. Currently, Belgium has seven nuclear reactors operating in the country with a net MWe of 5,761. Electricity consumption in Belgium has increased slowly since 1990 and nuclear power provides 54%, 45 billion kWh per year, of the country’s electricity.

Belgium decided to phase out nuclear power generation completely by 2025. All intermediate deadlines however have been missed or pushed back.

Belgium has a long industrial history in the nuclear sector. With Biraco in Olen, which regularly hosted Marie and Pierre Curie, it was at the start of the industrial production of radium in 1922.

The Uranium ore used was discovered in 1913 in Katanga in then Belgian Congo by UMHK. The ore found in the Shinkolobwe mine was exceptionally rich. Even before the second world war the United States expressed an interest in it. However it wasn't until 1942 when the United States required uranium for the Manhattan Project, and Belgium was one of the few countries with an appreciable stock of uranium ore, that Edgar Sengier struck a deal. For the following decade Belgium through its colony was one of the main suppliers of uranium to the United States. This trade relationship resulted in Belgium being granted access to nuclear technology for civil purposes.

In 1952 this led to establishing SCK•CEN, a study center for nuclear research. The first reactor BR1 (Belgian Reactor 1) became critical in 1956. Construction of BR2 started the following year. The BR2 reactor is one of the five main reactors producing molybdenum-99 which decays into technetium-99m, the radioisotope used in more that 80% of diagnostic imaging procedures in nuclear medicine.

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