The letter is their response to the Nationale Agenda Ondergrondse Waterstofopslag, the national agenda for underground hydrogen storage, which was published in early July and names Drenthe’s salt domes as a possible site for salt extraction and storage. Three of those domes lie within the boundaries of Aa en Hunze. The three municipalities want Drenthe’s salt domes to be explicitly ruled out, like those in Groningen.
“Our residents have been through a lot, and that obliges us to be very cautious. We do not consider any further ‘messing about underground’ desirable or responsible,” says Anno Wietze Hiemstra, mayor of Aa en Hunze, on behalf of the three municipalities.
The Aa en Hunze council had already come out against new mining underground. In the letter, the municipalities point to the risks above and below ground in an area with homes, Natura 2000 sites and UNESCO heritage. They also feel that the national plans do not fit together well, because the same salt domes are named in different programmes, both for hydrogen and for the storage of nuclear waste.
According to the national agenda itself, salt domes are technically suitable for hydrogen, but in practice it is difficult. Salt has to be extracted first, which takes a long time and calls for many adjustments, and the domes also lie beneath villages. Storage could begin after 2040 at the earliest.