Link to the study - European Parliament - Europa

Policy Department D: Budgetary Affairs
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2. DECOMMISSIONING PROJECTS
2.1. THE FRAMEWORK OF DECOMMISSIONING PROJECTS IN EUROPE
Reactors in shutdown mode in EU countries
The main focus of this study is on the decommissioning of nuclear reactors that were used for
commercial electricity production. 88 of those reactors 1 in the EU have finished operation and the
majority of these is not yet finally decommissioned (see ANNEX 1 for a complete list of reactors). The
distribution by country is displayed in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Number of reactors in shutdown state in the EU by country
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30
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Number of reactors in shutdown state in the EU by
countries
27
29
20
15
10
12
5
0
4
4
3
3
2
2
1
1
BE BG FR DE IT LT NL SK SP SE UK
Source: Authors, data derived from the IAEA-PRIS database (PRIS 2013)
While in most of the member states with reactors in shutdown state between one and four of those
reactors are in this stage, the 12 reactors in France, the 27 reactors in Germany and the 29 reactors in
the UK account for 77 % of the reactors in shutdown state and are located in only three countries in
the EU. So the majority of the (current and near future) decommissioning projects is concentrated in
those three countries.
1
The PRIS data base (PRIS 2013) includes all reactors that were designed and build to generate electricity.
This includes reactors such as Rheinsberg NPP that were designed to or performed additional functions,
e.g. in the R&D area, but no research reactors or production reactors other than for electricity generation.
The database does not discriminate between reactors still to be decommissioned and reactors demolished
and released from regulatory control.
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