Belgium has two nuclear power plants operating with a net capacity of 5,761 MWe. Electricity consumption in Belgium has increased slowly since 1990 and in 2016 nuclear power provided 51.3%, 41 TWh per year, of the country's electricity. The country's first commercial nuclear power plant began operating in 1974. Belgium decided to phase out nuclear power generation completely by 2025. In March 2022, due to the Russian invasion on Ukraine, Belgium decided to postpone closing of two reactors by 10 additional years. History Belgium has a long industrial history in the nuclear sector. Biraco in Olen, which regularly hosted Marie and Pierre Curie, 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 Union Minière du Haut-Katanga. The ore found in the Shinkolobwe mine was exceptionally rich. Even before World War II the United States expressed interest, 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 in Mol. 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 that decays to technetium-99m, the radioisotope used in more than 80% of diagnostic imaging procedures in nuclear medicine. 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, near SCK•CEN, was chosen as the location for Eurochemic. Thirteen OECD countries (Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark, Austria, Norway, Turkey, Portugal, Spain) joined forces to build a pilot nuclear reprocessing installation. The atoomwijk, a housing project for workers on private land near the site, was a scientific village unique in Europe at the time. In 1958 the Brussels World's Fair Expo 58 was to be powered by BR3. The reactor was to be built in Brussels,