The Guardian reports that the Dutch government is scaling back their nuclear activities in favor of coal with carbon capture. The writer, Reuters Carolyn Hornby, is less than impressed:
[Environment Minister Jacqueline Cramer] said that coal, the most widely-used but also one of the most polluting energy sources on the planet, was a favoured option for the Netherlands because of its availability and easy access to Dutch ports, but also for security of supply.
This is the path-of-least-resistance approach to solving energy issues. Carbon capture is a more promising technology than the article allows; still, the Dutch have adopted it largely as a reaction against nuclear energy rather than as a better approach - and it must seem a little ironic to the environmentalists who took the upper hand in arguments against nuclear energy that they've ended up with more coal plants. Surely, an unintended consequence of their intransigence.
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