netherlands

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Shell sells Dutch solar farms in retreat from renewables
2 months ago
- Shell is selling all its Dutch solar farms and a combined wind and solar park to TotalEnergies, covering its entire onshore wind and solar portfolio in Europe.
- The Dutch sites have a combined capacity of up to 254 megawatts, enough to power tens of thousands of homes, and are located in Moerdijk, Heerenveen, Emmen, Sas van Gent, and Koegorspolder.
- The sale, which requires regulatory approval, is expected to close by the end of 2026 and marks Shell's retreat from renewable energy as it refocuses on oil and gas.
- Shell's CEO Wael Sawan has shifted investment back to fossil fuels, while TotalEnergies is expanding its renewable assets; Shell retains its North Sea wind farms, hydrogen plant, and carbon capture projects in the Netherlands.
- The move comes amid legal battles over emissions, including a Supreme Court appeal by Milieudefensie over Shell's 700 oil and gas projects.
Corona Update 21 April - Bert Hubert's writings
2 months ago
- The Netherlands successfully kept IC capacity within limits by following strict rules, but healthcare workers need rest.
- Rapid home tests were unreliable; several countries wasted millions on them. Reliable antibody tests show 3% of Dutch blood donors had antibodies in early April.
- Large-scale trials are underway for treatments like the TBC vaccine, Camostat Mesylate, and Remdesivir, with early positive results.
- Vaccines are still 18 months away, but could be prioritized for high-risk groups. Weather may help slightly but is not proven to be decisive.
- Test capacity in the Netherlands is now sufficient, but logistics and organization remain bottlenecks. Testing is currently limited to severe cases and medical staff.
- Contact tracing is crucial for controlling the epidemic; apps and manual tracing need support. Children may be less susceptible, but data is limited.
- The effective reproduction number R_t is below 1 now, but careful monitoring and random testing are needed to avoid a second wave.
- Gradual easing of measures is possible if R_t remains under 1, combined with smart contact tracing and dynamic adjustments.
Onze afluisterwet is eigenlijk een privacywet - Bert Hubert's writings
2 months ago
- The Dutch secret services are getting a new law that makes it easier to intercept and hack on a large scale, which they claim is essentially a privacy law.
- The law allows all internet and telephone cables to be monitored and data stored for a year, with provisions for sharing with foreign entities.
- In 2017, a previous version of the law led to societal uproar and a referendum against it, but it was revised and now passes with little opposition.
- The author suggests that historical memory of privacy violations from WWII has faded, and people trade privacy for free online services without realizing the cost.
- Privacy concerns are often ignored because immediate harms are not tangible, similar to climate change or pensions.
- The author warns about future risks such as government misuse of databases for repression, citing potential scenarios with political figures like Donald Trump.
- The Dutch government supported an EU proposal to scan phones for suspicious content, which was blocked by the European Parliament but remains a threat.
- Accumulated data could lead to innocent people having to constantly explain their actions, potentially making them victims of false accusations.
Corona: Hoe en waar krijgen we het? Niemand die het weet. - Bert Hubert's writings
2 months ago
- The author blogs about COVID-19, often explaining positive developments and the importance of good ventilation.
- The main complaint is that in the Netherlands, little is known about where and how people get infected, or which groups are most affected, despite GGD and RIVM having relevant data.
- Initially, new infections were traced back to Italy or Austria, but as cases rose, detailed contact tracing stopped.
- RIVM has published some studies (e.g., on schools) and statistics on healthcare workers, but not comprehensive data on infection locations or circumstances.
- Data could inform targeted measures (e.g., banning specific gatherings, improving ventilation) and allow low-risk activities to resume.
- Other countries show patterns: public transport dangerous in London/New York, meat processing plants in the US.
- The author urges release of interim results to guide behavior and measures, and calls for public demand for this information.
- Raw data needs careful statistical analysis to avoid misinterpretation.
Corona Update: Juli - Bert Hubert's writings
2 months ago
- The situation in the Netherlands is currently good, but the exact reasons remain unclear.
- COVID-19 infections primarily occur indoors; experts advise avoiding crowded indoor spaces.
- Vaccine development is progressing well, with 150 candidates in development and promising results in animal trials.
- Artificial antibodies (monoclonal antibodies) show effectiveness in animal models.
- Vitamin D deficiency is strongly linked to worse COVID-19 outcomes; supplementation is recommended.
- Hospital treatments have improved, including the use of dexamethasone for severe cases.
- The effectiveness of lockdown measures varies by country due to luck and local conditions.
- T-cells may play a key role in long-term immunity against COVID-19.
- Hydroxychloroquine has been proven ineffective against COVID-19.
- GGD contact tracing is active to quickly address potential outbreaks in the Netherlands.
Corona-update Eind Juli - Bert Hubert's writings
2 months ago
- Situation in the Netherlands is worsening but the exact causes are unclear; infections occur indoors.
- Vaccine development is promising, but it's unknown if they prevent disease or transmission; early data shows strong immune response in lab tests.
- Vitamin D deficiency prevention remains important; treatments like dexamethasone and SNG001 show reduced mortality and severity.
- Bromhexine (Bisolvon) combined with hydroxychloroquine showed significant improvement in a small Iranian study, but more trials are needed.
- Masks have symbolic value and may help, but 70% of infections occur among household or family contacts, so other measures remain crucial.
- Regional clusters in Randstad area; national second wave not yet confirmed; careful monitoring needed.
Some animated Dutch COVID-19 Figures - Bert Hubert's writings
2 months ago
- The author created an animation of Dutch COVID-19 figures using the 'date of onset' field to reduce the impact of testing delays.
- The data uses 7-day smoothed daily positive test numbers to effectively remove weekend effects.
- Week-on-week growth was 60% at the end of September, after which the daily growth rate dropped.
- Part of the decrease is attributed to the latency between symptom onset and positive test results, with the point shifting right over nine days of data.
- Another part of the decrease may be real, and the animation shows how the growth rate develops over time as more data arrives.
- When the three lines (current, one-day-old, two-day-old) are close together, the growth rate for that date is considered settled.
Dutch COVID-19 Data Sources & Their Interpretation - Bert Hubert's writings
2 months ago
- The three main Dutch COVID-19 data sources are RIVM (national disease notifications), LCPS (hospital capacity), and NICE (hospitalizations), each with different reporting methods and timeframes.
- RIVM's daily OSIRIS data includes positive tests, hospitalizations, and deaths, but the 'Date_statistics' field is overloaded (representing symptom onset, lab result, or notification date), causing confusion in trends.
- LCPS tracks bed occupancy (absolute numbers) and new admissions separately, while NICE reports admissions only (not discharges), leading to discrepancies between sources.
- GGDs provide weekly test counts and positivity rates, but do not include commercial rapid-testing data, which is largely unreported due to legal ambiguities and variation in reporting requirements.
- Derived data includes a government dashboard (in English) and a weekly 60-page PDF (in Dutch) with additional metrics like R number and test positivity.
- RIVM data fields include age group, sex, province, hospital admission status (only for COVID-19-specific admissions), deceased status, and week of death, but recovery is not tracked.
- LCPS data provides ICU and general ward bed counts for COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients, plus new admissions since October 17.
- NICE data includes suspected COVID-19 cases that may later be disproven, making recent data less reliable; their raw data feed is unofficial and requires careful interpretation.
Het gaat om de kerncentrales - Bert Hubert's writings
2 months ago
- The debate in the Netherlands focuses on whether to pursue nuclear energy as a green solution or dismiss it as unnecessary.
- Only a few suppliers dominate the European market: Russia's Rosatom, France's Framatome, and China's CGN.
- Framatome projects (Hinkley Point C, Olkiluoto 3, Flamanville III) have faced severe delays and cost overruns, with quality control issues.
- Geopolitical concerns arise with Rosatom (Russia) and CGN (China), making them unattractive options for Western Europe.
- Alternatives include newer, less proven companies like GE Hitachi, Rolls-Royce SMR, and NuScale, but none have delivered commercial reactors yet.
- KEPCO (South Korea) has built reactors abroad but faces high costs and long timelines, and has shown reluctance for new projects in the Netherlands.
- The decision for nuclear energy must involve choosing a supplier, and no option is without significant drawbacks.
De Tijdelijke Wet op Inlichtingen- en Veiligheidsdiensten 2022 - Bert Hubert's writings
2 months ago
- The law shifts prior approval to ex-post control for many surveillance powers.
- Services can hack, intercept, and copy data without prior authorization, affecting innocent third parties.
- Technical risks, zero-days, and vulnerabilities no longer need to be described before hacking.
- Untargeted interception of all cables for up to a year is allowed for exploration, with data shared with foreign agencies.
- Restrictions on bulk domestic internet interception are removed.
- Algorithms can search bulk intercepted data without prior external review to find targets.
- Bulk data can be stored indefinitely without relevance checks, with limited binding ex-post oversight.
Communications without Musk and Trump: Cloud Kootwijk - Bert Hubert's writings
2 months ago
- Historically, the Netherlands built Radio Kootwijk to escape foreign dependency on British-controlled cables for communication with the Dutch East Indies.
- Today, Europe and the Netherlands are heavily reliant on American cloud services, risking government communication and data privacy.
- The author proposes creating a 'Cloud Kootwijk'—a European-owned cloud infrastructure for secure, independent government communications.
- Urgent action is needed to build and use such a system daily, as current reliance on American tech poses an intolerable risk.
Restzetels en voorkeursstemmen - Bert Hubert's writings
2 months ago
- The Dutch House of Representatives has 150 seats, and the electoral quota (kiesdeler) is total votes divided by 150, with exact fractions used.
- Initial seat allocation gives each party whole seats based on their votes divided by the quota, leaving remainder seats (restzetels) to be distributed.
- Remainder seats are awarded one by one to the party that would have the highest average votes per seat if they received the seat (D'Hondt method), recalculating after each allocation.
- Preference votes: candidates with more than 25% of the quota are prioritized for seats, followed by list order; this can bring in candidates who would otherwise not be elected.
- Parties may submit different lists per electoral district, adding complexity to seat allocation and candidate selection.
- The official Kiesraad provides detailed documentation on seat calculation, districts, and allocation procedures.
Dashboard totale Amerikaanse afhankelijkheden - Bert Hubert's writings
2 months ago
- A list of Dutch organizations totally dependent on US cloud services, where societal disruption would occur if they stopped working due to US sanctions (e.g., over Greenland).
- Government entities include the Dutch Parliament, RDW, IND, UWV, all municipalities and provinces, COA, tax office, KNMI, and the judiciary, all relying heavily on Microsoft Azure or M365.
- Media outlets like major newspapers (DPG, Telegraaf, NRC), radio/TV stations (NOS, RTL, BNR), and regional broadcasters depend on Google, Microsoft, or AWS.
- Banks and payment systems (all major banks, DNB, BKR) rely on US clouds; however, Geldmaat ATMs claim to function without AWS.
- Transport sectors: OVPay, GVB Amsterdam, Loodswezen (pilotage), ProRail, and NS are migrating critical systems to Azure or AWS.
- Healthcare heavily virtualized: hospitals, GP posts, patient records (Chipsoft HiX), VECOZO billing, NEDAP, Sanday, ZorgDomein run on US clouds; RIVM and Zivver also dependent.
- Energy grid operators show some resilience, but telecom and cyber security (Crowdstrike, Fortinet, etc.) pose risks due to US-based live updates.
- Other sectors: all notary offices, housing corporations, education, and 600,000 businesses using Exact Online (AWS) are fully dependent.
- A special note: 'sovereign clouds' would also stop working under sanctions, and the government has become 'analog incompetent' with no fallback.
- The list is incomplete; readers are invited to email additions to bert@hubertnet.nl.

netherlands

Shell sells Dutch solar farms in retreat from renewables

Corona Update 21 April - Bert Hubert's writings

Onze afluisterwet is eigenlijk een privacywet - Bert Hubert's writings

Corona: Hoe en waar krijgen we het? Niemand die het weet. - Bert Hubert's writings

Corona Update: Juli - Bert Hubert's writings

Corona-update Eind Juli - Bert Hubert's writings

Some animated Dutch COVID-19 Figures - Bert Hubert's writings

Dutch COVID-19 Data Sources & Their Interpretation - Bert Hubert's writings

Het gaat om de kerncentrales - Bert Hubert's writings

De Tijdelijke Wet op Inlichtingen- en Veiligheidsdiensten 2022 - Bert Hubert's writings

Communications without Musk and Trump: Cloud Kootwijk - Bert Hubert's writings

Restzetels en voorkeursstemmen - Bert Hubert's writings

Dashboard totale Amerikaanse afhankelijkheden - Bert Hubert's writings