{"id":13672,"date":"2026-04-30T15:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T15:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/13672\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T15:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T15:38:11","slug":"belgium-eyes-nuclear-takeover-to-keep-reactors-running-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/13672\/","title":{"rendered":"Belgium eyes nuclear takeover to keep reactors running\u00a0 \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

It comes as the EU doubles down on electrification, renewables and nuclear to reduce dependence on volatile fossil fuel imports, amid rising energy prices caused by the war in Iran.<\/p>\n

“We must reduce our overdependency on imported fossil fuels and boost our homegrown, affordable, clean energy supply. From renewables to nuclear, in full respect of technology neutrality,\u201d European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Belgium had reversed course on nuclear last year, when its parliament scrapped<\/a> a planned phase-out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The move will contribute to the government\u2019s goal of securing around 4 gigawatts of nuclear capacity by 2040, said Sylvain Cognet-Dauphin, a senior analyst at the S&P Global consultancy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are two ways to get to that target: build new nuclear, which takes time, or restart and extend existing units,\u201d Cognet-Dauphin said. \u201cThere won\u2019t be a significant lifetime extension or new build without significant government involvement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Extending the lifetime of aging reactors and restarting recently closed ones entails significant investment and risk. \u201cIf you\u2019re a private operator, investing in nuclear assets is billions, even tens of billions, and they come with construction, waste and political risks,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It comes as the EU doubles down on electrification, renewables and nuclear to reduce dependence on volatile fossil…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[76,7,249,1540,115,9320,2380,116,300,3712],"class_list":["post-13672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-bart-de-wever","tag-belgium","tag-energy","tag-energy-crisis","tag-france","tag-green-energy-transition","tag-nuclear-power","tag-spain","tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","tag-war-in-iran"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116494408387159892","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}