Dutch unlisted utility Delta said on Thursday it had started to apply to build a second nuclear power plant in the Netherlands, which it expects will be operational in 2018.

So the Greenpeace team went down to the Delta head office in Middelburg, while the plans for the plant were being presented to shareholders, and built Delta their very own (mock) nuclear waste dump…

© Greenpeace/Bas Beentjes

Where will all the waste from a second nuclear power plant go? We can safely assume Delta won’t want it on their doorstep. No, it will be dumped at COVRA, the Netherlands’ nuclear waste storage depository, where it will sit for the next 100 years while the nuclear industry hopes and prays that a solution to dangerous nuclear waste will present itself.

And where will all the electricity from the plant go? Right now, there’s no demand. The Dutch environment minister Jacqueline Cramer has her doubts…

She believes the Netherlands will produce more energy than it can use by 2012. 'Then you have to ask if you should be creating more capacity in the form of nuclear power stations.'

There’s no solution to the waste a second plant will produce. If Ms Cramer is right, the Netherlands doesn’t need the electricity. Wind power capacity has almost doubled in the country since 2005. Research suggests the Dutch electricity system is capable of coping with the supply of large-scale wind power in the future.

There’s no need for a new nuclear power station in the Netherlands. So why build one?

(More information is available in Dutch on the Greenpeace Netherlands website. Video of the action can be seen here.)