The cabinet has yet to make a decision on the construction of new nuclear power plants. The costs are so high and the construction of power plants takes so long that no irreversible steps need to be taken.
This is stated by the Expert Team Energy Supply 2050 in an advice to the cabinet. Minister Rob Jetten (Energy and Climate) set up this committee of experts last year to advise how the Netherlands can continue to operate if fossil fuels such as gas are no longer used in the future.
According to the committee, a great deal still needs to be done to achieve the target date of 2050. Houses have to get rid of gas, cars off petrol, factories have to switch to alternative fuels such as hydrogen. According to committee chairman Bernard ter Haar, difficult choices have often been avoided in recent decades. “That will no longer be possible, choices cannot be postponed.”
Mark the place
But where the committee advocates haste in building wind farms, among other things, the committee also advocates a careful approach to investing in nuclear energy. The government wants to build two new nuclear power plants. There are still two locations in the race for this: Borssele in Zeeland, where there is already a nuclear power station (the government’s preference) and Rotterdam’s Maasvlakte (the preference of network operator TenneT).
However, according to the expert team, the question is whether new nuclear power plants are necessary. An important advantage of nuclear power plants is that they provide energy security. Experience shows that it is better to spread the supply of energy sources, says the team. But nuclear energy is also very expensive and it is highly questionable whether nuclear power plants can be profitable.
The two future nuclear power plants will only account for a small part of the electricity supply, 10 to 13 percent. It looks like by the time the plants are ready (the cabinet is betting on 2035, but the experts think it will take at least until 2040) there will be enough wind and solar energy available. Nuclear power plants will then not be able to run continuously, which means that the government will always have to provide financial assistance, the committee warns.
Germany
The only way in which nuclear power plants can become profitable in the future is if the power plants start supplying electricity to foreign countries. In that case, it is again not wise to build the new nuclear power plants in the west of the country, the committee says. In Germany, the still functioning nuclear power plants are scheduled to close next weekend. Incidentally, the German governing party FDP has started a discussion to keep it open longer now that Germany no longer receives gas from Russia.
Minister Jetten is not in favor of postponing the decision on the construction of the nuclear power plants. “Nuclear power stations are not the solution for everything,” he said when presenting the advice. But according to him they are necessary to be assured of sufficient energy in the future in addition to that from the sun and wind. Nuclear power plants could be used, among other things, to generate hydrogen for industry.
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