Worth Reading

"The Dutch Plutonium Dead End"
By Mathieu Pavageau and Mycle Schneider, WIse-Paris
September 1997, published in January 1998, commissioned by Greenpeace Netherlands
42 pages.

The report analyses the Dutch plutonium policy, reprocessing and breeder reactor cooperation. It evaluates production, current and future stocks of Dutch plutonium. The current plutonium stock is estimated at about one metric tonne. Most of it is certainly stored at La Hague. If the Netherlands did carry out the entire reprocessing contracts, it would have to deal with about four tonnes of plutonium. It should be emphasised that the country has a plan to shut down the country's last remaining reactor by 2004. There is no use for that plutonium in the country.

While the report led to public controversy in the Netherlands in early 1998, Mycle Schneider, director of WISE-Paris, has revealed to the Dutch radio station VPRO that the French utility EDF denied a request by the Dutch utility to take over the Dutch plutonium. The Dutch utility EPZ confirmed on VRPO that, given its own large plutonium stockpiles, EDF will first use its own material before using plutonium from other countries. The WISE-Paris report argues that the Dutch utility should cancel the remaining reprocessing contract and investigate means to mix its plutonium with high level radioactive waste and vitrify it to become a final waste package.

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