The battle for clean energy routes, Belgium confirms that it will shut down all nuclear reactors in the country
Dec 24, 2021
According to multiple local media reports, the Belgian coalition government reached an agreement on Thursday to completely shut down the remaining seven nuclear reactors in the country by 2025.
It is worth mentioning that the controversy over nuclear power plants in the past few weeks has also split the Belgian seven-party coalition government. The country passed a law to abolish nuclear power plants in 2003. The Green Party requires strict compliance with the 2025 deadline, but Prime Minister De Crowe’s Liberal Democratic Party believes that the two newly built nuclear reactors should be retained, and it also rejected the construction of natural gas thermal power plants. The alternative to nuclear power is not environmentally friendly.
Currently, the seven nuclear reactors in Belgium belong to two nuclear power plants, all operated by the French energy giant Engie.
After overnight negotiations, the core ministers of the Belgian government finally reached an agreement on fulfilling the promise made when the cabinet was formed last year, but this agreement did not close the country's use of nuclear energy: the Belgian government will continue to invest 100 million euros to promote "small modularization" Reactor project". According to Agence France-Presse, citing government officials, the budget for investing in this new technology is already in place.
The nuclear power dispute in Belgium is also the epitome of the EU's new energy route debate. At present, EU countries are arguing whether nuclear power and natural gas can be included in the EU's sustainable energy investment list. European Union Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said on Monday that he expects the two controversial energy sources to appear on the EU's final list announced in January next year.
The biggest objection to nuclear power at the moment is that the energy is "not friendly enough" to the environment, and its priority should be listed after other energy sources.
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