Borssele nuclear power plant

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The Borssele nuclear power plant is a nuclear power plant in the Dutch town of Borssele. It has a pressurized water reactor (PWR). Borssele is the only nuclear power plant still operational for electricity production in the Netherlands. Its net output is 485 MW.

1 History
2 Radioactive waste
3 Controversy
4 Sources
5 References
6 See also
7 External links

[edit] History

The Borssele nuclear power plant was built by Siemens and is operational since 1973. Originally it was mainly built to supply relatively cheap electricity to aluminum producer Pechiney. In 2006, the installation of a modern steam turbine brought the original output from 449 MW to 485 MW.

[edit] Radioactive waste

Areva NC^[1] reprocesses the spent fissionable material in La Hague, Manche, Basse-Normandie, France. Part of the deal is that the radioactive waste (i.e. the products of the reprocessing which are not useful) are taken back by the Netherlands. They are stored at the COVRA.

The Central Organization for Radioactive Waste (COVRA), also at Borssele, is the national storage facility for all radioactive wastes. It is a surface facility suitable for the next 100 years.

[edit] Controversy

The use of nuclear energy is a controversial issue in Dutch politics. The first commercial nuclear plant in the Netherlands, Dodewaard, was decommissioned in 1997 after only 28 years of service. This decision was taken against the background of political opposition to nuclear energy. In 1994, government and parliament decided to close down the Borssele plant as of 2004. However, due to legal action by owners and employees of the plant and changes in government policy in 2002, the decommissioning was delayed until 2013, meaning the plant would exactly fulfill its originally intended life span of 40 years. In recent years nuclear energy has become less controversial in the Netherlands and is increasingly viewed as one of many possibilities to reduce CO₂ emissions and increase national energy self-reliance. As a result, the Dutch government decided in 2006 that Borssele would remain operational until 2033.

[edit] Sources

This stub was based on information from the website of the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning, and the Environment^[2] and the Energy Research Center of the Netherlands.^[3]