* European Association for Grey Literature Exploitation

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February 27, 2007

Netherlands - Petten High Flux Reactor has completed conversion from HEU to LEU fuel

HFR Petten is now fully operational with a complete low-enriched uranium core, and has obtained regulatory approval to continue such operation. The first LEU assembly was inserted into the reactor in November 2005, and conversion was planned to be completed through regular refueling outages by May 2006. The final increment of LEU fuel was inserted on May 6, 2006. The sixth and final annual report on the status of converting the reactor from high-enriched to low-enriched fuel, from US State Department to NRC, dated February 13, 2007, is available as ADAMS ACN ML070510448.

* 2005-03-22: N-waste hysteria rampant
Dirk Hoogland, letter to Deseret Morning News

The government of the Netherlands supported nuclear energy research in order to get rid of coal and oil, which cause air pollution. The Netherlands discovered huge supplies of natural gas, and when there was no longer any need for nuclear energy, the interest waned.

November 8, 2004

The man who has sparked Dutch anti-Islamic fervor has a nuclear link

On the morning of November 2, a 26-year-old Amsterdam man named Muhammad Bouyeri got on his bicycle, pedaled across town to where filmmaker Theo van Gogh lived and worked. Mr. Bouyeri rode up beside Mr. van Gogh, who was also on a bicycle, and began shooting at close range. Mr. van Gogh fell from his bicycle but managed to stagger across the street toward the building where he worked before collapsing. Mr. Bouyeri followed him on foot and bent over the dying man to cut his throat. He then stuck a knife into Mr. van Gogh's chest, pinning a five-page letter there, before apparently walking calmly into a nearby park, according the published accounts of witnesses. Mr. Bouyeri apparently expected to die in a gun battle with the police, shooting at them when they arrived minutes later. He was shot in the leg, however, and taken into custody. A suicide note later found in his pocket called on other Islamic militants to "take up the challenge." The killing has prompted much reaction, including a bombing of Islamic school during the wee hours this morning.

Mr. Bouyeri had come to the attention of Dutch intelligence officials earlier when they were investigating a younger Dutch-Moroccan man, Samir Azzouz. Both moved among five apartments in the city's western suburbs frequented by Islamic radicals, and Dutch newspapers have reported that the two men were seen in each other's company. Mr. Azzouz, now 18, became known to the police nearly two years ago when he was stopped in Ukraine while trying to reach Chechnya, saying he wanted to join an Islamic war against Russia. He returned to the Netherlands, but was arrested again with four men in October 2003 on suspicion of plotting a terrorist attack after the Dutch intelligence service intercepted "coded communications" between the men arrested and a Moroccan in Spain identified as Naoufel. Intelligence officials say Naoufel is suspected of involvement in the suicide bombings in Casablanca, Morocco, that killed 45 people last year. Mr. Azzouz was found with ingredients that could have been used in a bomb, the Dutch authorities say. Mr. Azzouz and his associates were eventually released because of lack of evidence, but he was rearrested in June 2003 with more complete bomb-making ingredients and maps and floor plans of the country's only nuclear power plant, as well as Schiphol Airport near Amsterdam, the Parliament, the Defense Ministry and several other public buildings in The Hague. He is in prison awaiting trial.

[Source: Craig S. Smith, "Dutch Look for Qaeda Link After Killing of Filmmaker", The New York Times, November 8, 2004, p. A10]

April 4, 2004

Holland - public hostility to wind farm expansion

... Dutch government officials fear that public hostility will force them to shelve plans to expand Holland's wind farms.

Holland had hoped to increase onshore windmill capacity to 1,500 megawatts - enough energy for 1.5 million homes - by 2010.

Wim van der Weegen, a spokesman for the Dutch environment ministry, said: "This is a very densely populated country. Whatever infrastructure you want to put up people will oppose. People say that they don't want it in their backyard. They don't like the look, and they fear interference with their lives."

[Source: Renee Mickelburgh et al., "Huge protests by voters force the continent's governments to rethink so-called green energy", Sunday Telegraph (London), April 4, 2004, p. 28]

August 13, 2003

The national electricity distributor, TenneT, issued a "code red" alert yesterday, calling on industry and the general public to cut back on electricity usage wherever possible. At the European Commission-owned Petten research reactor, which is located on the coast, outside temperatures were said to be lower than those being experienced elsewhere. Cooling water from Petten is released directly into the North Sea Ð as is the cooling water from Borssele, the country's single-unit 449 MW pressurised water reactor, where a spokesman said no special measures had been put in place and the plant continued to operate normally.

[Source: John Shepherd (NucNet Central Office), "Europe's Heatwave: Nuclear Shows Staying Power As Wind Fails", NucNet, August 13, 2003]

* Netherlands 1998

[Source: Nuclear Energy Agency (2000), as presented by THE ECONOMIC FUTURE OF NUCLEAR POWER: A Study Conducted at The University of Chicago, August 2004, p. 2-5]

1986

Mean individual dose to the Dutch from Chernobyl accident (over 50-year period) is projected to be 275 microSieverts. The collective dose to the Dutch over the same period is projected to be 3,950 person-Sieverts. The projections take into account inhalation from the passing cloud, ingestion through the food chain, and external irradiation from deposited radioactivity, and are based on the MESOS dispersion model developed by Helen ApSimon of Imperial College, as applied by W. Nixon, of the Safety and Reliability Directorate of the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority. [Ref: Nuclear News, "Chernobyl doses across the continent", January 1987, p. 62]