COUNTRY STATUS REPORT #5: THE NETHERLANDS
 

HISTORY

Although there are only two nuclear power plants in The Netherlands, plans to build more have never been abandoned. In 1957 the government was even planning to produce all electricity by the turn of the century with nuclear power. In the seventies the plan was to build about 35 reactors; this was later reduced to three.

Construction on the first Dutch reactor began in 1964 at Dodewaard. It went into operation in 1968. [1]  The official opening, presided over by the queen, was also the reactor's first incident. As the queen withdrew the control rods, reactivity increased so quickly that the reactor had to be stopped immediately. [2]

The decision to build a second plant, this time at Borssele, was made together with plans for an aluminum producing factory. Pechiney founded the factory with a government grant of 60 million guilders and a guarantee that it would receive current to run it at a lower than cost price. Borssele was built to provide this. About 4,000 citizens opposed the plans. Nevertheless, Borssele was opened in 1973.

In 1978 the government announced a 'Brede Maatschappelijke Discussie' (Broad Social Debate) about nuclear energy which was to end in 1984 with a final report. The then Minister of Economic Affairs postponed drilling into salt for waste storage until after the final report was done. The report's conclusion was clear: expansion of nuclear power was undesirable. Nevertheless, the government went ahead with plans to build two to four new reactors. [3]  In June 1985 an anti-nuclear group stole documents from the Ministry of Economic Affairs showing that advanced plans had been made to build reactors at Borssele and Moerdijk without permission from the Parliament and without any public participation. [4]

The disaster at Chernobyl ended parliamentary debate over new plants and led to another postponement. But still, nuclear power was not completely abandoned. In November 1993 Minister of Economic Affairs Andriessen presented the ministry's Dossier Kernenergie (Nuclear Energy File) in which nuclear energy was presented as safe, a remedy against the greenhouse effect, with soluble waste problems and without proliferation problems.

Whether there will be a decision in the near future is unclear. With the expansion of comined-heating power, fewer electricity producing plants are needed at present. But after the turn of the century some of the old stations will be closed. If nuclear power is chosen to replace them, a decision must be taken within the next few years because of the large amounts of time needed for planning and building nuclear plants. After the summer of 1995 a debate over electricity policy will be held in the parliament. Maybe then nuclear power will be abandoned forever. [5]
 

CURRENT SITUATION

Borssele
The reactor at Borssele (450 MW) was expected to last 30 years. Until now, though, no pressurized water reactor has actually managed to stay operational for that long. In 1986, after an IAEA team inspected the plant and criticized it as being unsafe, plans were made to improve its safety. Several measures were found necessary, and would cost an estimated 470 million guilders. But work could only start in 1997 and would only be refunded to the investors when the reactor closes in 2007, three years later than planned. After objections were made about the high costs, the Samenwerkende Electriciteits Producenten SEP (Cooperating Electricity Companies) finally gave permission to invest the amount necessary and promised that Borssele would close in 2007. But when the Dutch parliament would not give permission for the reactor to operate until that time, the Minister of Economic Affairs decided it should be closed in 2004. The money to make the investments refunded will be taken from a special fund to subsidize the costs of unexpected rise in electricity production costs. [6]

Dodewaard
Dodewaard is a quite small reactor (54 MW) and was the first nuclear power plant to be built in The Netherlands. Dodewaard may be seen as symbol for the anti-nuclear struggle in The Netherlands; the big demonstrations drawing tens of thousands of demonstrators in 1980 and 1981 were great events. In 1992 the Dutch government canceled the license of the plant because of insufficient public participation possibilities in the licensing procedure. The safety report was also found insufficient. The government gave a temporary bridging license to avoid having to close the plant and a new procedure was started, this time with public participation. But the experimental use of MOX-fuel was forbidden during this period.

Originally the plan was to shut Dodewaard down in 1995, but closure is currently being delayed until 2004 and it is expected that the SEP will propose to delay the date even further, until 2007. There are two reasons for this. First, a new nuclear power plant cannot be expected to open until around this time and the loss of experienced personnel by closure earlier would create a problem. Second, Dodewaard is being used to study the development of the Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (SBWR) by the US reactor builder General Electric. By coincidence it has qualities that make it equivalent to this type reactor, said to be of a new and safer generation, although in fact, an accident in a reactor of this type cannot be excluded. [7]
 

NUCLEAR WASTE

COVRA
Annually 150 metric tons of nuclear waste is produced. This waste is from nuclear power stations, research institutes, hospitals, industry, etc. Around 50% of the volume and 90% of the radioactivity is from nuclear power plants. 99 Percent of the high level waste comes from Dodewaard and Borssele. [8]  From 1960 until 1982 The Netherlands has frequently dumped low- and intermediate level waste into the Atlantic Ocean. Because of protests against it and a lack of sound arguments for it, this dumping is no longer feasible. In December 1984 a commission was established and given the task of looking for municipalities which would allow a waste storage facility to be built within their territory. A statement made by the chairman of this commission, 'Molly' Geertsema, that 'a semolina factory is more dangerous than a nuclear waste storage' caused much hilarity. [9]  Finally, after much resistance, only Borssele was designated as a suitable location. In opinion polls taken afterwards, it appears that 80 percent of the Borssele residents opposed a storage facility. [10]

COVRA (Centrale Organisatie Voor Radioactief Afval) is the Dutch organization responsible for collecting and storing the waste. In 1992 the storage halls were finished and COVRA transported all the low- and intermediate level waste from the former storage in Petten to Borssele where it is presently stored. However, the facility is only designed for temporary storage of 50 to 100 years. In the planning stage COVRA said that this temporary method would allow 'tens of years time to solve the waste problem', but during the construction phase it suggested that the waste problem was actually solved with the building of the facility. [11]  The objections to storage at Borssele are legion: the storage halls are situated close to the dikes, thus flooding cannot be excluded; the storage capacity was calculated on the basis of new nuclear power plants; the storage is located in the middle of a concentration of dangerous industries (liquefied petroleum gas storage, a nuclear power station, the river Westerschelde, etc.); and an installation which will burn nuclear waste in order to reduce the volume is also planned for the site.

Final storage
Since 1984 the OPLA (Opslag te Land) commission has been doing research on storage in salt. The debate on geological burial in salt is not new in the Netherlands. In fact, government has presented this option for the final storage of nuclear waste for 20 years. So far OPLA's research has cost approximately 50 million Dutch guilders. [12]  Its final report was published in 1993.

On 14 May 1993 the Dutch government decided that underground storage is possible, provided that 'permanent retrievability' is assured. [13]  Seeing that this 'retrievability' is, for the time being, not possible, underground storage has been postponed indefinitely. The point of view of the government on this is again to be found in the Dossier Kernenergie. [14]  To judge from an appendix of this dossier, however, it appears that the government's advisers from the Technical University in Delft are interpreting the notion of permanent retrievability very broadly. They want to close the mine after the waste has been placed in storage and monitor it with seismic surveying equipment and radar. When they need to get back down again to where the waste is stored, they propose to dig a new mine. This so-called 'back-mining' is presented as a variant of permanent retrievability, although this is in fact permanent storage. [15]

High level waste
Until now only low- and intermediate level waste is being stored; the highly active solid waste is piling up at the reprocessing plants. In a few years the high level waste which has been sent from Borssele to the reprocessing plant at La Hague (France) and from Dodewaard to Sellafield (UK) will be returned and also stored at Borssele.

More and more countries with nuclear power plants are questioning reprocessing or have decided not to lengthen their current contracts. In June 1991 the European Parliament accepted, but has not yet acted on, two resolutions which plea for a ban on reprocessing. The Netherlands also is no longer sure about reprocessing, despite of claims that 'one cannot get out of the current contracts': in 1992 the then Minister of Environment Alders answered questions from the parliament by saying that when building new nuclear power stations again comes under discussion, when it comes to deciding "whether or not to proceed to reprocessing, then based on the current market situation a choice for storage without reprocessing will be indeed the most probable." [16]  According to the contracts, the first container with reprocessed waste from La Hague was supposed to have come back in 1994. However, COVRA's storage facility is not expected to be finished until around the year 2000. It is true that the French agree with the delay, but "there is political pressure" for a speed solution. [17]
 

DUTCH ANTI-NUCLEAR MOVEMENT

Protest against nuclear energy started in the seventies with demonstrations in Borssele, a big demonstration in Kalkar and a mass refusal to pay a tax on the electricity bill for the Kalkar breeder reactor in which The Netherlands was involved. In may 1980 a `discussion camp' was held near the Dodewaard plant. 5000 people considered anti-nuclear resistance, and plans were laid for a blockade of the plant in October. To assure full participation, small discussion groups were formed, called 'basisgroepen' (grass-root groups), and representatives were chosen for a national group. The blockade mobilized 15,000 activists on Sunday 19 October but was disturbed by heavy weather on the next day. In 1981 a second blockade took place with 15,000 participants. This one ended with police tear-gas action against activists' barricades and threats from right wing demonstrators.

The 1981 and 1982 actions against the seadumping of nuclear waste, were important for the anti-nuclear movement. Waste transport vehicles were blockaded and sabotaged on their route to the docks. In 1982 transports were not announced, but a quick mobilisation led to direct action by hundreds of activists.

In the following years, large demonstrations became less common. This may have been due to the success of the movement: no new reactors were built. Some people think that the discussion culture of the grass-roots movement disentegrated, but, in fact, demonstrations and direct actions never ended. One year after the Chernobyl disaster 4,000 people blockaded Borssele for 3 days. In recent years, resistence has taken the form of different groups using direct actions, like small blockades or sabotage. The Dodewaard and Borssele plant still confronted with demonstrators in smaller actions. [18]
 

DUTCH NUCLEAR INDUSTRY

UCN
Ultra Centrifuge Nederland (UCN) is part of the international consortium, URENCO, which makes uranium suitable for use in atomic power plants. The UCN was founded in 1970 as a state-owned company. The Netherlands has subsidised UCN with more than half a billion guilders during the 25 years of its existence.

Already in 1917 Lindemann and Aston published, in the UK, a paper which suggested the possibility of separating isotopes using ultracentrifuges. But the technical problems were impossible to solve at that time. Also in 1917 it was not known that uranium could be used for bombs and energy. Between the two world wars, the American J.W. Beams developed the gas-centrifuge for small amounts uranium hexafluoride. In Germany, Harteck & Groth and Zippe & Steenbeek were the specialists in centrifuge-technology. Already in 1942 in Germany a tiny amount of uranium was enriched. Although Germany was advanced in ultracentrifuge technology it was not able to enrich enough uranium for a bomb. After the war Germany was not allowed to develop this technology and the initiative passed to The Netherlands. A Dutch team managed by J. Kistemaker from FOM (Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie = Fundamental Research of Materials) merged with the NV. Werkspoor, a machine factory in Amsterdam, to develop bearings for the ultracentrifuge. Kistemaker already had experience enriching uranium from his work with the cyclotron project in Paris for the German nuclear bomb (affaire Celastic) with 3 other Dutch scientists. Because these bearings were the weak point of the German technology a lot of research was invested in their improvement. [19]  This research was very `successful' and today in the Dutch town of Almelo UCN houses many thousands of ultracentrifuges which produce enriched uranium.

The Pakistan spy Abdul Qadr Kahn, who worked in a dutch ultracentrifuge research facility, used knowledge of the ultracentrifuge technology for the development of an enrichment plant in Pakistan, which is intended to produce weaponsgrade nuclear material. [20]  After the Gulf War, Western weapons experts visiting Iraq found a centrifuge production factory based on Urenco technology. [21]  Little is known about the large number of containers of depleted uranium hexafluoride which are stored at the Almelo site, and even less is known about what should be done with them. After the UCN obtained a licence in 1994 to enrich reprocessed uranium, the radioactive emissions have increased. [22]  The worldwide transport of uranium hexafluoride became worldwide news after the sinking of the Mont Louis in august 1984. The dangers of transporting this material through populated areas, by road, rail, and water, were highlighted. [23]
 

1. 'Kernafval in zee of zout? Nee fout!' (Nuclear waste in sea or salt? No!), Greenpeace, 1994, H. Damveld, S. van Duin and D. Bannink, pp.5-10
2. Allicht, (NL), Spring 1994, foundation LAKA, 'Neerlands oudste kerncentrale' (Dutch oldest nuclear power plant)
3. Ibid. 1
4. Volkskrant, (NL), 10 July 1985, 'Kerncentrales in Borssele en Moerdijk' (Nuclear power plants in Borssele and Moerdijk)
5. Ibid. 1
6. 'De geschiedenis van het modificatieplan' (The history of the modification plan), foundation LAKA, 28 December 1994
7. Ibid. 2
8. 'Straling: opvattingen en toepassingen' (Radiation: conceptions and applications), Ministry of Environment (VROM), May 1987, p.14
9. Ibid.1, p.39
10. 'Het Dossier Kernenergie kan gesloten worden' (The File Nuclear Energy can be closed), foundation LAKA, April 1993, p.13
11. Ibid. 10
12. Ibid. 10, p.15
13. 'Opbergen van afval in de diepe ondergrond' (waste storage in the deep underground), a letter of the Minister of Environment to dutch parliament (23163, No1), 14 May 1993, p.7
14. 'Dossier Kernenergie' (Nuclear Energy File), Ministry of Economic Affairs, November 1993, p.19-25
15. Ibid. 1, p.3
16. Ibid. 10, p.15
17. 'Verslag telefoongesprek kerncentrale Borssele' (report about telephone call with nuclear power plant Borssele), foundation LAKA, 16 November 1994
18. '10 jaar verzet tegen kernenergie: 1977-1986' (Ten years of resistence against nuclear energy), foundation LAKA, April 1987
19. 'De ultracentrifuge', W. Klinkenberg, 1971
20. 'Atoomspionage' (Atomic espionage), Center Boek, 1988, F. Veerman and J. Ros
21. NRC Handelsblad, (NL), 26 November 1991, 'Irak bouwde fabriek voor verrijking uranium met Urenco-technologie' (Iraq built factory for uranium enrichment with Urenco-technology)
22. WISE, (NL), 25 February 1994, 'The biggest wastedump in The Netherlands'
23. Afval, (NL), May 1984, 'Stop die UF6 transporten!' (Stop those UF6 transports!)
 
 
 

Written by the LAKA Foundation for Steps for a nuclear-free world
17 March 1995