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National Report of the Kingdom of the Netherlands under the Convention on Nuclear Safety

Author	Min. Sociale Zaken
Date	September 1998
Classification	1.01.0.00/46 (GENERAL)
Front

Introduction
On 24 September 1994, the Netherlands signed the Convention on Nuclear Safety (ref. 1), which
was subsequently formally ratified on 15 October 1996, and entered into force on 13 January
1997. The Convention obliges each contracting party to apply widely recognised principles and
tools in order to achieve high standards of safety management at their nuclear power plants. The
Convention also requires each contracti.ng party to report on the national implementation of these
principles to meetings of the parties to the Convention. This report describes the manner in which
the Netherlands bas fulfilled its obligations under the Convention.
The Netherlands has a small nuclear programme: only one nuc1ear power reactor is currently in
operation, plus a small number of research reactors (the technical details of which are provided in
Annex 1). lt was originally thought that nuclear power would play an important role in the
country's electricity generation. A small prototype reactor (Dodewaard BWR., 60 MWe) was
opened in 1968, and this was followed by the first commercial reactor (Borssele PWR., 480
MWe) in 1973.
Although plans were made to expand nuclear power by 3000 MWe, these were shelved following
the accident at Chemobyl in 1986. Instead, the govemment ordered a thorough screening of the
safety of both plants, which led to major backfitting projects at both of them. The backfitting
project at Borssele was successfully completed in 1997. Meanwhile, mainly for economie
reasons, the Dodewaard reactor was shut down.
Nuclear supervision is exercised by several, mainly govemmental, organisations, which are
stafred by only a very small number of people, as is commensurate with the small scale of the
country's nuclear programme. Plants operate under a licence, after a safety assessment bas been
carried out, based on the IAEA NUSS Requirements and Safety Guides, as amended for
application in the Netherlands. The licence is granted under the Nuclear Energy Act (Kew).
As the only operating nuclear power plant bas recently been modemised, no major safety issues
are outstanding at present. Of course, ageing is an issue requiring serious attention with relatively
old power plants such as Borssele. The main empbasis now is on the safety of the research
reactors, such as the high-flux reactor (HFR) of the European Commission Joint Research Centre
in Petten. The regulatory authorities arealso interested in the COVRA interim storage facility in
the municipality of Borsele* and the uranium enrichment facility operated by URENCO
Nederland BV in Almelo. These fàcilities arenotsubject to the Convention and are hence not
given any further consideration bere.
This report gives an article-by-article review of the situation in the Netherlands, as compared
with the obligations laid down by the Convention. The numbers of the chapters and sections of
this report correspond with the articles of the Convention.

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