Our technical activities

Synatom is involved in various stages of the nuclear fuel cycle.

At the front end, Synatom buys natural uranium from various producers. It then signs contracts with specialised companies for its conversion and enrichment.

At the back end, Synatom coordinates the various operations needed to ensure safe management of the spent fuel. It also takes charge of the various equipment available to the relevant operator of the nuclear power plants. In practice, this means mainly the interim storage buildings at Tihange (underwater) and at Doel (dry) and transfer containers (Tihange) and dry interim storage containers (Doel). Synatom also covers the operating expenses of these facilities.

Who does what at the moment?

As well as Synatom, there are two other major players who are directly involved in the nuclear fuel cycle in Belgium:

  1. ELECTRABEL operates Belgium's seven nuclear reactors and takes charge of producing the fuel assemblies, their use in the reactors and their transfer to the spent fuel pool.
  2. NIRAS-ONDRAF and its subsidiary BELGOPROCESS today already take care of storage of the waste from the reprocessing contracts signed before 1993. Eventually NIRAS-ONDRAF will be responsible for final storage of all spent fuel.

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Belgium – The nuclear fuel cycle