The plenary meeting of the House on Thursday unanimously gave the green light for a bill on nuclear provisions. The text by Energy Minister Tinne Van der Straeten (Green) is intended to ensure that the operator of the nuclear power stations bears the future costs of decommissioning and management of the nuclear waste, and not the taxpayer.
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It is now well known that five of the seven nuclear power plants in our country will close in the coming years. The dismantling of those sites and the management of the radioactive waste will cost all together 41 billion euros and the work will probably last well beyond the year 2100. Energy Minister Tinne Van der Straeten consistently speaks of “the longest, most expensive and most delicate shipyard ever for our country”.
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The French energy company Engie operates the nuclear power stations in our country through Electrabel. The intention is that the operator of the nuclear power stations, in this case Electrabel, bears the costs. To this end, Synatom was set up in 2003, a subsidiary of Engie-Electrabel in which approximately 14 billion euros in nuclear provisions has currently been set aside.
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Funds not available
The only fear is that that money will not be ready when it is needed. That’s because Electrabel can borrow money from Synatom from itself. At the end of 2021, according to Van der Straeten, slightly more than 8.3 billion of the 14.4 billion euros had been loaned back to Electrabel.
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A bill by Van der Straeten now puts an end to that possibility. Electrabel must repay the loans to Synatom by 2030, the majority of the money must be repaid by 2025, according to Van der Straeten.
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Bill not for taxpayer
In addition, the Nuclear Facilities Commission (CNV) is getting more teeth. The CNV will have to give its blessing in advance if Electrabel wants to pay dividends to the French parent company Engie or reduce its own resources. This should prevent Engie from dismantling Electrabel and the core invoice still ending up with the taxpayer. A few months ago, Electrabel channeled more than 1.2 billion euros to Engie in this way.
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Storage of radioactive waste
On Thursday evening, the plenary Chamber approved another draft law by Van der Straeten, which gives Belgians a say in how radioactive waste should be stored. There is as yet no definitive solution for this. A royal decree should elaborate on this in more detail later this year, but the intention is for the King Baudouin Foundation to organize and supervise the process. The “great national dialogue” should start this fall and will last at least 18 months.
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