Category: Fact check · Date: 29 March 2026 · Author: get WISER editorial team · Source: NOS op 3, 28 March 2026 (watch the video ↗)
The occasion
On 28 March 2026, NOS op 3 published a twelve-minute video entitled "Staat straks in elk dorp een kerncentrale?" (Will every village soon have a nuclear power station?) The clip promises an exploration of the "comeback of nuclear energy" and the role of smaller, cheaper nuclear power stations. In reality, the NOS repeats a series of persistent myths, gives the floor almost exclusively to well-known critics, and ignores relevant facts that do not fit the narrative.
Below, we dissect the clip, claim by claim.
The framing
Cooling towers as a scare image
The NPO likes to show enormous cooling towers when covering nuclear power stations. The viewer associates them with nuclear energy, but reality is different: no Dutch nuclear power station has ever had a cooling tower. Dodewaard cooled with water from the Waal river; Borssele cools directly with water from the Westerschelde estuary. Showing cooling towers is literally framing -- it creates an image that does not correspond to the Dutch situation.
"One atom of uranium yields a small amount of energy"
Physically this is correct, but it is a half-truth at best. Splitting one atom of uranium does indeed release a small amount of energy -- just as burning one molecule of natural gas does. What the NOS fails to mention: from a kilogram of uranium you extract incomparably more energy than from a cubic metre of natural gas or a tonne of coal. With full utilisation -- for example in breeder reactors or with recycling -- the energy density of uranium is roughly one and a half million times higher than that of coal[4]. Even in a conventional reactor without recycling, uranium still delivers approximately 20,000 times more energy per kilogram.
That is also why so little waste remains: the waste from a lifetime of energy consumption fits in a soft-drink can. Read why: Nuclear waste is a solved problem.
Heat forgotten
The NOS focuses exclusively on electricity. But nuclear energy can also deliver heat directly -- for district heating, industrial processes and hydrogen production. In Switzerland, the Beznau nuclear power plant has been supplying district heating to over 10,000 households in the Unteres Aaretal district since 1983[11]. In China, the Haiyang plant provides heating for a city of 200,000 inhabitants. That perspective is entirely absent.
"Radiation is very harmful"
"Very harmful" is a value judgement, not a scientific statement. The effects of ionising radiation depend on the dose[2]. At low doses -- such as those in the vicinity of a nuclear power station -- there is no measurable health effect. The radiation dose for residents near Borssele is less than 0.01 millisievert per year (actually measured: approximately 0.001 mSv). For comparison: a CT scan delivers a few to ten millisievert depending on the type, and the average annual radiation dose in the Netherlands -- including medical diagnostics -- is approximately 2.5 millisievert.
UNSCEAR[2] (the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation) concludes that low radiation doses have no demonstrable effect on public health. More on this: Nuclear energy does not irradiate.
"The waste remains dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years"
A mantra that derives its power from repetition, not from facts[4]. The NOS fails to specify:
- Which waste? Low-level radioactive waste (>90% of the volume) has decayed to background level within a few decades.
- Which substances? High-level radioactive waste contains a mix of isotopes with widely varying half-lives. The fission products (caesium-137, strontium-90) have decayed after approximately 300 years. The vitrified waste as a whole -- including remaining minor actinides -- reaches the level of the original uranium ore after a few thousand years.
- What quantity? All the high-level radioactive waste that Borssele has produced is stored at COVRA in a single storage hall. The total volume of vitrified waste is comparable to a couple of shipping containers.
The "hundreds of thousands of years" refer to plutonium-239, but that is precisely what is not discarded: it is valuable fuel that is recycled[4]. Borssele has its spent fuel reprocessed at La Hague (France), where plutonium and uranium are recovered for reuse. The remaining high-level radioactive waste -- approximately 5% of the original fuel -- is vitrified and contains virtually no plutonium-239 (more than 99.9% is recovered). More on this: Nuclear waste is fuel.
The NOS shows low-level radioactive waste
The concrete drum shown by the NOS contains low-level radioactive waste: pieces of metal, overshoes, glassware. This contains no long-lived substances. The drum is dangerous, however -- it weighs hundreds of kilograms.
Nuclear weapons
The NOS links nuclear energy to nuclear weapons. The connection does not exist: the isotopes and enrichment levels are fundamentally different, the technology differs, and the majority of nuclear energy countries do not possess nuclear weapons. It is as if you were to link driving a car to car bombs.
Regarding Hiroshima and Nagasaki: in those two explosions in 1945, hundreds of thousands of people were killed directly by the blast, collapsing buildings, fire and burns. The Life Span Study[3] -- the most extensive radiation research ever conducted -- estimates that up to the year 2000 approximately 1,900 excess cancer cases are attributable to the radiation from that single day. Out of a total population of hundreds of thousands of survivors.
The "expert"
The NOS gives the floor almost exclusively to the same emeritus professor whenever nuclear energy is discussed: Prof. Dr. Wim Turkenburg (Utrecht University), who has been active as a critic of nuclear energy for over 50 years. We challenge the NOS to produce peer-reviewed publications by this gentleman on the costs and construction times of nuclear power stations. They simply do not exist.
Turkenburg did publish a review article about SMRs in 2024[12], but it appeared in Tijdschrift Milieu -- a trade journal of the Association of Environmental Professionals, not a scientific journal with peer review. It is an opinion in a trade magazine, not science.
Why not ask the professors of nuclear technology in Delft, Groningen or Eindhoven? Or the ANVS[7] (the Dutch nuclear safety authority)? Or the RIVM?
Costs: the Lazard chart
Selective project choice
The NOS shows exclusively projects with cost overruns: Flamanville (France), Olkiluoto (Finland), Hinkley Point C (UK). Why not the dozens of recent projects that were delivered on time and within budget[8]? The first reactor at Barakah (UAE) was operational in 9 years; the complete set of four reactors in approximately 12 years. South Korea builds nuclear power stations structurally on time and under budget. Read more: Nuclear energy is not expensive.
The Lazard source
In the top right of the NOS chart, the source is shown: Lazard. Lazard's LCOE analysis[5] bases the cost of nuclear energy largely on one American project: Vogtle -- precisely the project with the highest cost overruns. This is as if you were to base the cost of driving on the price of a Bugatti.
What the chart does not show
The NOS compares only production costs (LCOE). This ignores two fundamental problems:
- System costs: Solar panels and wind turbines are cheap per kWh, but the electricity must also be transported. Grid reinforcement costs tens to hundreds of billions of euros[10] -- those costs are not included in the LCOE.
- Value of electricity: On a windy, sunny summer day, the market value of electricity drops to zero or even negative. On a cold, windless winter evening, the nuclear power station runs at full capacity -- and the electricity is worth the most. LCOE measures what electricity costs, not what it is worth.
And why does the horizontal axis of the NOS chart stop at 2022? Since the energy crisis, the costs of wind and solar have risen sharply[9]. Tenders for offshore wind are failing, companies are going bankrupt. Could it be a deliberate choice not to show the chart up to and including 2025?
SMRs: "still in the development phase"
Here the NOS demonstrates that it has not understood the subject. SMR is an umbrella term. There are:
- Proven water-cooled reactors in small format: the Rolls-Royce SMR (470 MW, pressurised water reactor -- the same type as Borssele), the GE-Hitachi BWRX-300 (300 MW, boiling water reactor -- the same type as Dodewaard, now in its tenth generation). In Canada, a BWRX-300 is currently under construction[6]; completion is planned for 2029.
- Advanced designs with helium, sodium or molten salt cooling. Those are indeed still in development.
The NOS lumps everything together and concludes that it is "new technology" that is "still in the development phase." That is as if Apple releases a new iPhone and the NOS writes: "It is a fairly new technology."
Large or small?
The NOS poses the question: what is more efficient, one large plant of 1,600 MW or 64 small ones of 25 MW? Purely on production costs, the large plant has an advantage. But the NOS forgets -- once again -- the system:
- Grid congestion. Has the NOS called TenneT[10]? The electricity grid is full. A single plant of 1,600 MW requires heavy high-voltage connections across the country.
- Proximity. A small reactor next to a data centre, a district heating system or an industrial estate has short lines: less transmission loss, less landscape disfigurement, less pressure on the overburdened grid.
"The government has to top up the funding"
Entirely agreed! But this applies to every major energy project in the Netherlands. Hundreds of billions have been earmarked for the SDE++ (the Dutch subsidy scheme for solar and wind). Cables and substations at sea, the conversion and reinforcement of the electricity grid -- again hundreds of billions. When tenders for offshore wind fail, the government opens its wallet. When coal-fired power stations close, the government opens its wallet.
For nuclear energy it is no different. What the NOS does not mention: the cabinet never said that nuclear power stations would be built for the reserved amount. The figure on the balance sheet was a signal to industry that the Netherlands is serious.
"It takes too long"
An old Chinese proverb: "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now."
Offshore wind: takes 10+ years. Onshore wind: takes 10+ years. Grid reinforcement: takes 10+ years. Hydrogen economy: takes 10+ years. Nuclear energy: takes 10+ years.
None of these solutions will deliver electricity tomorrow. That is not an argument against starting -- it is an argument to start now. Every year we spend sowing doubt is a year that fossil fuel plants keep running. See also: Anti-nuclear activism distracts from the climate transition.
And let us be honest: clips like this one, which sow doubt and suggest that it "takes too long," are themselves part of the problem. They delay decision-making and give fossil fuel interests more time[9].
Conclusion
The NOS op 3 clip presents itself as a sober exploration, but is in reality a succession of framing, half-truths and missing context. Cooling towers that do not exist, costs based on one failed project, technology called "new" that has existed for decades, and experts who are not experts.
The NOS could have made one telephone call to the ANVS[7], TenneT[10] or a Dutch university. They did not -- or they ignored the answers.
Those who truly want to know how things stand with nuclear energy will not find the answer at NOS op 3. But they will find it here.
Also read our knowledge dossiers
- → Nuclear energy produces virtually no CO₂
- → Nuclear energy is not expensive
- → Nuclear waste is a solved problem
- → Nuclear energy is the safest energy source
- → Nuclear energy does not irradiate
- → Anti-nuclear activism distracts from the climate transition
- → Nuclear waste is fuel
- → The anti-nuclear coalition
Sources
- NOS op 3, Staat straks in elk dorp een kerncentrale?, 28 March 2026 ↗
- UNSCEAR (2021), Sources, Effects and Risks of Ionizing Radiation ↗
- Radiation Effects Research Foundation, Life Span Study ↗
- UNECE (2022), Carbon Neutrality in the UNECE Region: Integrated Life-cycle Assessment of Electricity Sources ↗
- Lazard (2024), Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis — Version 17.0 ↗
- OPG / GE-Hitachi, Darlington New Nuclear Project — BWRX-300 ↗
- ANVS, Autoriteit Nucleaire Veiligheid en Stralingsbescherming ↗
- World Nuclear Association, Nuclear Power in the United Arab Emirates ↗
- Ember Climate, Electricity Data Explorer ↗
- TenneT, Netcongestie ↗
- Axpo, Nuclear Power Plant Beznau — District Heating ↗
- Turkenburg, W. (2024), Hoe snel dragen nieuwe kleine kerncentrales (SMR's) commercieel bij aan de energievoorziening?, Tijdschrift Milieu, 2024-3 ↗
