Costs to clean up Petten nuclear plant escalate

The reactor seen from the dunes. Photo: ECN via Wikimedia Commons

The Dutch cabinet is allocating an extra €117m to clean up nuclear waste at its Petten reactor, minister Carola Schouten told MPs on Tuesday.

The Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ERN) at Petten currently supplies 60% of European demand for medical radio isotopes used to treat cancer and heart disease. The nuclear waste which has to be cleaned up came from other activities at Petten in the past.

The new funds will be used to to transfer the barrels filled with radioactive waste to the central nuclear storage facility at the Borssele nuclear power station in Zeeland province. The state has already spent some €200m to resolve the waste situation at Petten.

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