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.
Nuclear is actually poorly scalable - with the average build time of a plant being ~7 years (worldwide). Its well over 10 years in the EU and the average in the last 30 years in the US has been 16.4 years. In nations with no nuclear power generation experience it would likely be longer (ie: most nations), and unlike solar it’s been getting more expensive as the technology has rolled out over the decades. They’re such long and expensive projects that South Carolina currently has two abandoned unfinished nuclear reactors they gave up on when the projects ran way over budget.
Meanwhile solar added 700GW of new generation worldwide last year, while nuclear added… 5.5GW. Solar plants take months, not years to build - that’s an order of magnitude lower than nuclear.
We don’t have time left to slowly build out nuclear power plants as we move to greener energy generation to address climate change, so it’s pretty important that we favour solutions that are ready immediately - and if they’re cheaper and renewable with no nuclear waste to manage? Even better.
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/01/13/the-fastest-energy-change-in-history-continues/ (This source includes references to any figures I’ve mentioned)