Nuclear Energy Technology

The Nuclear Energy Technology team is part of the Belgian (and European) Nuclear higher Education Network (BNEN) and is contributing to the research of lead-cooled Small Modular Reactors at the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre, SCK CEN.

Nuclear energy has a significant share in the electricity production at national level and interest of industrial complexes has been expressed for autonomous, local, climate-neutral electricity production. As part of the Nuclear Alliance in Europe, the Belgian government committed to support the research of lead-cooled Small Modular Reactors (SMR) at SCK and SCK chairs at each of the 6 BNEN Universities, also at Ghent University.

With the multidisciplinarity and the market pull approach, the nuclear technology team likes to contribute to this in several ways:

1. the design of the SMR demonstrators, optimising size to the industrial demand, taking into the implications on the fuel cycle (incl. e.g. waste volume per unit of supplied power).
2. the integration of the SMR in the Belgian energy system landscape (district heating, heavy industry, etc.), with impact on the grid, benefiting economies of scale.
3. the risk governance change because of the wide distribution of SMRs, with impacts on regulatory surveillance, emergency planning and the effects on the social acceptance.

Contacts:
• prof. Riccardo Rossa
• prof. Matthias Vanderhaegen
• prof. Greet Maenhout