© Greenpeace / Beentjes

Here’s a story you won’t have heard before about how Europe nearly saw a nuclear meltdown in 2001. Why won’t you have heard it before? Because it was covered up by the Dutch authorities…

On a winter night in December 2001 there was a power failure in North Holland, where Petten is located. The nuclear reactor is a research reactor, not a power reactor; it needs electricity to operate, for instance to pump cooling water. The reactor has a back-up cooling system to prevent meltdown of the core in case of a power failure. But this evening the back-up cooling system failed to come into action and the operators did not know what to do. There is an extra safety system by convection cooling for which the operators had to open a valve, but the control room was dark. When they reached for a torch that should have been there, it had been taken away by a colleague to work under his car. Trying their luck the operators put the valve of the convection cooling in what they thought was the ‘open’ position. But then the lights came back on and the operators discovered they had actually closed the back-up convection cooling system. Had the power failure lasted longer it would have meant meltdown and a major disaster. When I learned about this some months later - they thought they could keep it secret - I did not think I could take responsibility any longer and I resigned from the Energy research Centre of the Netherlands.

They resorted to ‘trying their luck’. In a nuclear reactor.

The country’s nuclear regulator took 13 months before they reported the incident, commenting only that there ‘there has not been an unsafe situation’. The reason we’re only hearing about this now is because Frans W. Saris, a former director of the Energy research Centre of the Netherlands, tells the story in his book ‘Darwin Meets Einstein’ which was released this week.

Let’s go over that again. They came incredibly close to a nuclear meltdown (remember what one of those is?) at a Dutch nuclear reactor in 2001. The authorities covered it up and lied about it.

Still, that was eight years ago. Surely many lessons have been learned about the vital issues of safety, security, transparency, honesty and trust by the nuclear industry and its advocates in the intervening years…?

The [UK] government is refusing to provide details on five separate security breaches at Britain's nuclear power stations last year. The breaches have prompted accusations that ministers are suppressing damaging information at a time when they are attempting to sell the idea of more nuclear power stations.

That’s a bit fat ‘no’ then. Perhaps in another eight years, power cuts, missing torches and luck permitting. Until then, the public’s ignorance is the nuclear industry’s bliss.

(More information can be found in Dutch at Greenpeace Netherlands.)