Borssele nuclear power plant
Encyclopedia
The Borssele Nuclear Power Station (Kernenergiecentrale Borssele) is a nuclear power plant
in the Dutch
town of Borssele
. It has a pressurised water reactor (PWR). Borssele is the only nuclear power plant still operational for electricity production in the Netherlands. Its net output is 485 MWe
.
and has been operational since 1973. Originally it was built primarily 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.
. Currently, the uranium used by Borssele comes from Kazakhstan
.
reprocesses
the spent fissionable material. 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.
The Central Organization for Radioactive Waste (COVRA), also in Borssele, is the national storage facility for all radioactive waste
s. It is a surface facility suitable for the next 100 years.
Borssele produces around 12 tonnes of high level waste annually.
The nuclear plant had a long lasting contract with the nuclear recycling-factory in La Hague
. This contract will end in 2015. Since 2006 it was impossible to transport the used fuel-rod to France, because the French laws on nuclear fuel were changed. The new law insisted that the nuclear waste should return to Holland within a short period. This required a change in Dutch law too, but it took 5 years before all new permissions for transports were handled by the "Raad van State", and all questions of civilians and all opposition against the transports were handled properly. All that time it was impossible to sent spent fuel to France, and the used fuel rods were piling up in the spent fuel pool. Between 2012 and 2015 ten transports were planned, in which each time 50 percent more fuel rods than usual would be taken by train to La Hague. The reprocessed uranium would be enriched in Russia, by mixing it with high enriched uranium from nuclear powered submarines, discarded after the cold-war. A quarter of the uranium would stay in Russia, to be used in nuclear power stations there. The first transport was at 7 June 2011. Although activists tried to delay the transport, the next day the fuel rods arrived in La Hague.
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. In June 2006, the government made a contract ("Borssele-convenant") with the owners of the plant, Delta and Essent. Delta and Essent commit themselves to pay 250 Mio Euro into a
'fonds voor duurzame energie' (fund for the R&D of renewable energy) from their windfall profits being generated by the prolongation of the operating time.
In 2009, the Dutch utility Delta, which owns 50% of Elektriciteits Produktiemaatschappij Zuid-Nederland (EPZ), submitted a start-up memorandum to the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment, beginning the process of building a second unit at Borssele.
The choice of reactor design for the new project has not been disclosed, although Delta says it expects construction costs to be in the order of €4–5 billion ($6–7 billion). The company said in 2009 that if all goes well, a construction permit application could be submitted in 2012, with a construction start date of 2013, and plant operation in 2018.
In June, Delta announced that it will become the majority shareholder of the nuclear power plant in Borssele.
Table of malfunctions & accidents at the Borssele Nuclear Power Station
In 1996 there was an INES 2
-incident (on a scale of 7) at Borssele. Nobody got hurt.
Nuclear power plant
A nuclear power plant is a thermal power station in which the heat source is one or more nuclear reactors. As in a conventional thermal power station the heat is used to generate steam which drives a steam turbine connected to a generator which produces electricity.Nuclear power plants are usually...
in the Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
town of Borssele
Borssele
Borssele is a town in the Dutch province of Zeeland. It is a part of the municipality of Borsele, and lies about 12 km east of Vlissingen. Note that the municipality name is spelled with a single s while the name of the town is spelled with a double s.The town is the site of the Netherlands'...
. It has a pressurised water reactor (PWR). Borssele is the only nuclear power plant still operational for electricity production in the Netherlands. Its net output is 485 MWe
MWE
MWE may refer to:*Manufacturer's Weight Empty*McDermott Will & Emery*Midwest Express, an airline*Merowe Airport - IATA code*Multiword expressionMWe may refer to:*Megawatt electrical...
.
History
The Borssele nuclear power plant was built by SiemensSiemens
Siemens may refer toSiemens, a German family name carried by generations of telecommunications industrialists, including:* Werner von Siemens , inventor, founder of Siemens AG...
and has been operational since 1973. Originally it was built primarily to supply relatively cheap electricity to aluminum producer Pechiney
Pechiney
Pechiney SA was a major aluminium conglomerate based in France. The company was acquired in 2003 by the Alcan Corporation, headquartered in Canada...
. In 2006, the installation of a modern steam turbine
Steam turbine
A steam turbine is a mechanical device that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam, and converts it into rotary motion. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Parsons in 1884....
brought the original output from 449 MW to 485 MW.
Nuclear fuel
In July 2011, Borssele received from the government the permission to burn MOX fuelMOX fuel
Mixed oxide fuel, commonly referred to as MOX fuel, is nuclear fuel that contains more than one oxide of fissile material. MOX fuel contains plutonium blended with natural uranium, reprocessed uranium, or depleted uranium. MOX fuel is an alternative to the low-enriched uranium fuel used in the...
. Currently, the uranium used by Borssele comes from Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
.
Radioactive waste
Areva NCAreva NC
Areva NC, formerly Cogema is a French company, created in 1976 from the production division of the French government's CEA It is an industrial group active in all stages of the uranium fuel cycle, including uranium mining, conversion, enrichment, spent fuel reprocessing, and recycling...
reprocesses
Nuclear reprocessing
Nuclear reprocessing technology was developed to chemically separate and recover fissionable plutonium from irradiated nuclear fuel. Reprocessing serves multiple purposes, whose relative importance has changed over time. Originally reprocessing was used solely to extract plutonium for producing...
the spent fissionable material. Part of the deal is that the radioactive waste
Radioactive waste
Radioactive wastes are wastes that contain radioactive material. Radioactive wastes are usually by-products of nuclear power generation and other applications of nuclear fission or nuclear technology, such as research and medicine...
(i.e. the products of the reprocessing which are not useful) are taken back by the Netherlands.
The Central Organization for Radioactive Waste (COVRA), also in Borssele, is the national storage facility for all radioactive waste
Radioactive waste
Radioactive wastes are wastes that contain radioactive material. Radioactive wastes are usually by-products of nuclear power generation and other applications of nuclear fission or nuclear technology, such as research and medicine...
s. It is a surface facility suitable for the next 100 years.
Borssele produces around 12 tonnes of high level waste annually.
The nuclear plant had a long lasting contract with the nuclear recycling-factory in La Hague
La Hague
La Hague is a region on the tip of the Cotentin peninsula in Normandy, France.La Hague is a picturesque place of Precambrian granite cliffs, coves and small fields surrounded by hedges. It faces the Channel Islands and there any many cousins on both side of the Alderney race.The dialect of the...
. This contract will end in 2015. Since 2006 it was impossible to transport the used fuel-rod to France, because the French laws on nuclear fuel were changed. The new law insisted that the nuclear waste should return to Holland within a short period. This required a change in Dutch law too, but it took 5 years before all new permissions for transports were handled by the "Raad van State", and all questions of civilians and all opposition against the transports were handled properly. All that time it was impossible to sent spent fuel to France, and the used fuel rods were piling up in the spent fuel pool. Between 2012 and 2015 ten transports were planned, in which each time 50 percent more fuel rods than usual would be taken by train to La Hague. The reprocessed uranium would be enriched in Russia, by mixing it with high enriched uranium from nuclear powered submarines, discarded after the cold-war. A quarter of the uranium would stay in Russia, to be used in nuclear power stations there. The first transport was at 7 June 2011. Although activists tried to delay the transport, the next day the fuel rods arrived in La Hague.
Controversy
The use of nuclear energyNuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...
is a controversial issue in Dutch politics. The first commercial nuclear plant in the Netherlands, Dodewaard
Dodewaard nuclear power plant
Dodewaard nuclear power plant was a nuclear power plant with a boiling water reactor in the Dutch town of Dodewaard. The plant halted energy production in 1997.-History:...
, 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. In June 2006, the government made a contract ("Borssele-convenant") with the owners of the plant, Delta and Essent. Delta and Essent commit themselves to pay 250 Mio Euro into a
'fonds voor duurzame energie' (fund for the R&D of renewable energy) from their windfall profits being generated by the prolongation of the operating time.
In 2009, the Dutch utility Delta, which owns 50% of Elektriciteits Produktiemaatschappij Zuid-Nederland (EPZ), submitted a start-up memorandum to the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment, beginning the process of building a second unit at Borssele.
The choice of reactor design for the new project has not been disclosed, although Delta says it expects construction costs to be in the order of €4–5 billion ($6–7 billion). The company said in 2009 that if all goes well, a construction permit application could be submitted in 2012, with a construction start date of 2013, and plant operation in 2018.
In June, Delta announced that it will become the majority shareholder of the nuclear power plant in Borssele.
Incidents
Since 1980 the Dutch government publishes yearly reports of malfunctions and accidents in nuclear power plants. These reports show that up to and including 2009 there were 372 incidents. During these incidents there were regular malfunctions of safety precautions. In 1981, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1989 and 2006 there had been problems with the emergency power supplies.Table of malfunctions & accidents at the Borssele Nuclear Power Station
| Year | Amount | Year | Amount | Year | Amount | Year | Amount | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | 17 | 1990 | 18 | 2000 | 12 | 2010 | ? | |||
| 1981 | 16 | 1991 | 23 | 2001 | 9 | |||||
| 1982 | 11 | 1992 | 20 | 2002 | 10 | |||||
| 1983 | 7 | 1993 | 21 | 2003 | 6 | |||||
| 1984 | 11 | 1994 | 17 | 2004 | 8 | |||||
| 1985 | 7 | 1995 | 8 | 2005 | 13 | |||||
| 1986 | 8 | 1996 | 14 | 2006 | 17 | |||||
| 1987 | 17 | 1997 | 15 | 2007 | 5 | |||||
| 1988 | 10 | 1998 | 10 | 2008 | 6 | |||||
| 1989 | 25 | 1999 | 8 | 2009 | 3 | |||||
| Total since 1980 | 358 | |||||||||
In 1996 there was an INES 2
International Nuclear Event Scale
The International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale was introduced in 1990 by the International Atomic Energy Agency in order to enable prompt communication of safety significance information in case of nuclear accidents....
-incident (on a scale of 7) at Borssele. Nobody got hurt.
See also
- Borssele Coal-Fired Power Station, for the coal-fired power plant nearby
- Nuclear reactors in the Netherlands