A ruling by the Constitutional Court could mean the nuclear power stations Doel 1 and Doel 2 have to close down earlier than the government planned.
The Court this week struck down a law passed in 2015 which extended the lifetime of the reactors by ten years. The case was brought by two environmental organisations, Bond Beter Leefmilieu (BBL) and Inter-Environnement Wallonie.
It may well be possible that two of Belgium's nuclear reactors, Doel 3 and Tihange 2, will never be put online again. Small cracks in the nuclear vessels are turning out to be a bigger problem than initially thought. The two nuclear reactors have been offline for some time now, and this will remain the case at least until next spring. New tests dashed hopes of getting them started again during winter. And there is more. They may even never get started again, the VRT learned from several reliable sources. The latest news only adds to Belgium's imminent power supply problems for next winter.
PARIS, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Belgian energy company Electrabel said its Doel 4 nuclear reactor would stay offline at least until the end of this year after major damage to its turbine, with the cause confirmed as sabotage.
On Tuesday, Electrabel had said the plant would remain offline until Sept. 15 as it carried out repairs and investigated an oil leak that forced its closure on Aug. 5. Its French parent company GDF Suez confirmed the closure was due to sabotage.
26 Mar (NucNet): The Doel-3 and Tihange-2 nuclear reactor units in Belgium were shut down today after tests related to the reactor pressure vessels (RPVs) showed “unexpected results”, Electrabel, a subsidiary of French energy company GDF Suez and operator of the stations, said.
Tests carried out at Belgium’s nuclear research reactor BR-2 in Mol consisted of accelerated irradiation of a test block with the same composition and properties as the Doel-3 and Tihange-2 RPVs.
Wed 27/02/2013 - 16:13Workmen have unearthed a device that is believed to be a bomb dating from the Second World War on the grounds of the Belgian nuclear power plant at Tihange near the town of Huy (Wallonia).
The website L'Avenir reports that the Belgian army's bomb disposal unit, DOVO, attended the scene to make the device safe. The nuclear power plant's internal emergency plan was implemented as a precaution.
Restarting two Belgian nuclear power plants which have been shut since the discovery of micro-cracks in their reactor vessels would be a hazardous move with potentially “catastrophic consequences”, according to a new study commissioned by the Green Party group in the European Parliament.
“A possible failure of the reactor due to sudden crack growth in case of local thermal stresses cannot be excluded and would have catastrophic consequences, especially in the vicinity of densely populated and high-economic activity areas,” it says.
Two of Belgium's nuclear reactions have been standing idle since the summer, but in a report for the government and the Belgian nuclear watchdog electricity generator Electrabel says that both Doel 3 in Flanders and Tihange 2 in Wallonia can be taken back into service forthwith.
The reactors were shut down after thousands of tiny tears were discovered in a valve linked to the reactor vessel.
London, 29 August (Argus) — The restart of the 1,006MW Doel nuclear power unit 3 in Belgium has been pushed back by a further two months, according to French utility GDF Suez, which operates the unit through its Belgian subsidiary Electrabel.
The unit is now forecast to go back on line on 1 December, two months later than the previous forecast.
BRUSSELS—Belgium has halted one of its seven nuclear reactors on suspicion that one of its components might be cracked, the country's atomic power regulator said Wednesday.
"We have found anomalies," said Karina De Beule, spokesman for the ACFN, the federal agency for nuclear control. The agency is "evaluating these anomalies, if they can cause cracks," Ms. De Beule said, adding that the 1,006-megawatt Doel 3 reactor will remain shut at least until the end of August.
France's GDF Suez has paid the Belgian government a 2010 nuclear tax payment of Eur212 million ($276 million), a company spokeswoman said Thursday.
Through its subsidiary Electrabel, GDF Suez operates almost all of Belgium's 5.9 GW of nuclear capacity.
