This Monday, the Prime Minister of Belgium, whose country is considering phasing out nuclear power, acknowledged that “the current situation is very different” from that of recent months. In Germany and Italy, the debate begins cautiously.
The condemned nuclear industry is gradually returning to the European scene thanks to the Ukrainian crisis. This Monday, Belgium says it is “reviewing” its position on the issue, while a December 23 government agreement is to shut down the country’s seven reactors by 2025 at the latest. On the terms: guaranteed safety and controlled prices.
But the surge in gas and oil clearly calls into question the converging trajectory. “The current situation is very different from when we made the decision at the end of December,” Belgian Prime Minister Alexandre de Croo told RTBF.
“So we have to do something in the short term, but the prospect of moving to a more sustainable energy system with lower emissions obviously needs to be maintained,” he said. The treaty was not evacuated, except for a new generation nuclear-type EPR.
Even the Green Party is acknowledging the current stalemate and is proposing to “revise” the exit plan, with a possible extension of the current two reactors beyond 2025. If Belgium is little dependent on Russian gas, then it is clearly affected by the price jump. The final decision to close the nuclear power plant should be made, in theory, on March 18.
explosive debate
In Germany, the exit from nuclear power, recorded after the Fukushima accident, also revived the discussion about a possible delay in the closure of the last power plants. The option was ultimately rejected as the process is too running to be suspended anyway.
Yet the nuclear debate is resurfacing in a country that has abandoned it but is half dependent on gas imports from Russia. Saxon Minister-President Michael Kretschmer (CDU) recently said that “decisions to phase out coal or nuclear energy should be discussed again.”
Italy, where nuclear power has become a taboo after the Chernobyl disaster, is an explosive topic. At the end of December, Ecological Transition Minister Roberto Cingolani received a salvo of raw wood, explaining that “it would be madness not to consider” the technology. The attack on the Ukrainian power plant in Zaporozhye does not, however, speak in its favor…
East will get stronger
Lines are moving in Greece as well. There is only one research plant in the country, which will be closed in 2025. “There are no nuclear power plants in Greece and there never will be,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in December. Three months and an energy crisis later, Athens is negotiating with Bulgaria for the supply of nuclear electricity, which has so far been a taboo.
For others, it is now about strengthening existing structures. Several Eastern European countries before the war in Ukraine decided to restart their nuclear industry. This is the case of Poland, a country for which EDF has made an offer of four to six reactors. Romania’s only power plant is being reconstructed, and the country is counting on small reactors (SMRs) to get by without Russian gas.
But for many European countries, the future is more likely to lie in liquefied natural gas delivered by tankers, or in pipelines that carry Algerian gas to Europe.
Thomas Leroy Journalist BFM Business