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The country’s first commercial nuclear reactor began operating in 1974. Currently, Belgium has seven nuclear reactors operating in the country with a net MWe of 5,761. Electricity consumption in Belgium has increased slowly since 1990 and nuclear power provides 54%, 45 billion kWh per year, of the country’s electricity. Two of those seven reactors are scheduled to be taken out of service in 2015. Belgium decided to phase out nuclear power generation completely by 2025. ==History== Belgium has a long industrial history in the nuclear sector. With Biraco in Olen, which regularly hosted Marie and Pierre Curie, it was at the start of the industrial production of radium in 1922. The Uranium ore used was discovered in 1913 in Katanga in then Belgian Congo by UMHK. The ore found in the Shinkolobwe mine was exceptionally rich. Even before the second world war the United States expressed an interest in it. However it wasn't until 1942 when the United States required uranium for the Manhattan Project, and Belgium was one of the few countries with an appreciable stock of uranium ore, that Edgar Sengier struck a deal. For the following decade Belgium through its colony was one of the main suppliers of uranium to the United States. This trade relationship resulted in Belgium being granted access to nuclear technology for civil purposes.〔 In 1952 this led to establishing SCK•CEN, a study center for nuclear research. The first reactor BR1 (Belgian Reactor 1) became critical in 1956. Construction of BR2 started the following year. The BR2 reactor is one of the five main reactors producing molybdenum-99 which decays into technetium-99m, the radioisotope used in more that 80% of diagnostic imaging procedures in nuclear medicine.〔http://www.iaea.org/About/Policy/GC/GC54/GC54InfDocuments/English/gc54inf-3-att7_en.pdf〕 In 1954 Belgium was one of the founding members of Cern, and three years later it was one of the original signatories of the Euratom Treaty. In 1957 A site in Dessel Belgium, a stone's throw away from SCK•CEN was chosen to be the location for Eurochemic. Thirteen OECD countries (Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark, Austria, Norway, Turkey, Portugal, Spain) joined forces to built a pilot nuclear reprocessing installation. This made the ''atoomwijk'', a housing project for workers on private land near the site a unique scientific village in Europe at the time. In 1958 the world fair Expo 58 in Brussel was to be powered by BR3. The reactor was to be built in Brussels, and open to visitors. Ultimately safety concerns and administrative problems moved the reactor to the SCK•CEN site. The other iconic symbol of the belief in nuclear technology at the time the Atomium housed a photo exhibition.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 language=nl )〕 In 1959, the Trico Center was established in Kinshasa its TRICO I research reactor was the first nuclear reactor on the African continent. US built BR3 was connected to the grid in 1962. Making it the first pressurized water reactor in Western Europe. SCK•CEN played a large role in developing MOX fuel. In 1960 near the same site NV Belgonuclaire, a joint venture between SCK•CEN, Electrabel and Tractebel received its first plutonium from the United States, with the goal of industrially producing MOX fuel. In 1963 BR3 was loaded with MOX fuel and was the first reactor in the world to generate electricity this way.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=About us Belgonucleaire )〕 In 1967 the commercial Chooz-A plant in France, close to the Belgian border, was connected to the grid. It had been constructed by a French-Belgian joint venture Sena (Société d'énergie nucléaire Franco-belge des Ardennes) to house a French-Belgian prototype pressurized water reactor, the first one built in Western Europe. It was jointly operated and delivered electricity to both countries.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=Chooz )〕 In 1972 Belgium participated with The Netherlands and Germany in the failed SNR-300 fast breeder reactor. In 1973 Belgium and four other European countries formed Eurodif. The first commercial nuclear reactor in Belgium, Doel-1, was taken into service in 1974. Six more were connected to the grid during the following ten years. Plans for an eighth reactor were scrapped instead utilities Electrabel and SPE took a 25% participation in the French Chooz-B nuclear power plant. In 1974 Eurochemics stopped its reprocessing activities. In 1987 BR3 was the first pressurized water reactor to be shut down in Europe. Decommissioning BR3 and Eurochemic has given Belgium significant expertise in the decommissioning of nuclear sites. Currently Belgium is preparing to contribute to Generation IV reactor research through the MYRRHA project.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=First for accelerator-driven nuclear reactor )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Nuclear energy in Belgium」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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