Why forward everything at 75 years? Argument of the State Secretary: The nuclear power plant in Borssele remains open for longer, the Netherlands will have two large nuclear power plants and possibly a number of little ones (Small Modular Reactors), so there is more nuclear waste. The rule of Europe that every country itself must find a solution for its own nuclear waste is also used by the government as an argument to speed up the process.
Jumelet and Hiemstra understand the reasoning of the cabinet that if you are going to produce more nuclear energy, you must also think about the waste. “But it should not be the case that the outcome of that search ends in advance with the Drenthe salt umbrella organizations,” says Hiemstra. “Investigate fine, but do not take a dead end,” Jumelet warns the State Secretary, referring to the provincial soil rules.
The Netherlands is committed to geological final storage. Researcher Herman Damveld: “So in the soil. And then there are only two flavors. In so -called Boom clay layers that occur in a number of places or in the northern salt umbrellaurs. The Drentse are under Gasselte, Anloo, Hooghalen. The Groningen under Pieterburen, Zuidwending and Onstwedde. Friesland has one, under -ternaard.”
For high -radioactive waste, the planners think of the construction of a mine in a salt dome. The nuclear waste is packed in concrete and steel in rooms of the mine corridors. If the storage is full, the whole mine must be filled with concrete. Then you can never reach it again.
“I have made studies on plans for storage in salt umbrella organizations in the United States, Germany and Denmark. They have come back to it everywhere because it is insufficiently reliable and there are problems,” said Damveld.
“In Germany it is stored in the salt mine in Asse. A large amount of water leaks in every day. Water and salt is brine, and that has affected the vessels and now leaks radioactivity. Germany is going to empty my mine and then again has to look for a solution for the waste. We have to learn from that.”