Carbon Reduction and The Dutch Road Forward

Here’s what the International Energy Agency has to say about carbon reduction ambitions in the Netherlands:

The head of the International Energy Agency urged the Dutch government Monday to expand its nuclear power base, but the country's environment minister said that's not in the energy equation for now.

Nobuo Tanaka, the IEA executive director, said the Netherlands will find it tough to reach its target of slashing carbon emissions 30 percent below 1990 levels within the next dozen years without building more nuclear power stations.

We’ve made the same argument (a lot) about the most efficacious way to achieve carbon reduction. We do wonder why IEA focused on the Dutch. A look at its Web site shows it does reports (for a price) focused on individual countries and how plans shape up versus goals. IEA seems neutral on energy generators, so it isn’t recommending nuclear because that’s what it always does.

Here’s a bit more on where the Dutch are on this issue:

The cabinet has agreed that no new nuclear power plants will be built during its term, although debate about the future of nuclear power was reignited last year as Dutch utility Delta said it would apply for a permit to build a new plant [this would replace a soon-to-be-shuttered plant].

The Dutch has a coalition government with Greens a part of the mix, so that probably explains the official silence – Germany is in a holding pattern with it’s current coalition, too. It may be that this report will find use as encouragement to move forward.

The little Dutch boy. He’s even holding tulips and wearing wooden shoes. It’s not every country that has a collection of recognizable traits that can be merged into horrid tchotchkes.