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Thijs Zonneveld, a former cyclist, made a joke that a 2,000m high artificial mountain should be created in the Netherlands.

Now, the mass media are reporting that it is being seriously considered:

Example: Agence_France-Presse (AFP)

A 2,000-metre-high mountain in the flatlands of the Netherlands is no longer just a pipe dream, the idea's main supporter, a newspaper columnist, said on Saturday. "The idea is not new but it's the first time that it is taken seriously by so many people," Thijs Zonneveld, a former athlete and writer for free daily De Pers said.

I think the original idea (burying the homes of 370,000 people to build an infeasible large structure, in order to ski and train for cycling) is ludicrous, but it was a joke. Ha ha. I like jokes. No problems.

However, the claim that this idea is being taken seriously is also ludicrous - and yet is being reported as news.

I would like to know if there has been any serious attempt to consider this proposal: e.g. a funded feasibility study or environmental impact study, the forming of a committee in a local government - basically anything more than a bunch of engineers and quantity surveyors drawing doodles and spreadsheets on napkins over a few beers.

Alternatively, have there been any retractions from AFP or evidence that Zonneveld likes to play practical jokes on the media?

I fear this is a bit of a silly question - but if I am right, I don't like it when nonsense like goes unchallenged in newspapers across the world. If I am wrong, this is an amazing story and I want to know.

Oddthinking
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    Eh, not impressed. [The Berg](http://www.the-berg.de/) was there first. Logistics didn’t work out. – Konrad Rudolph Aug 22 '11 at 18:49
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    Interesting. Is the manifesto as much gibberish in the original German as it is in English? "Logistics didn't work out." You shock me! :-) It may have been only a tiny fraction of the size, but at least, ["Mount Thebarton"](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowdome_Adelaide) was built before it went broke. – Oddthinking Aug 22 '11 at 18:59
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    It appears to be a very faithful translation. :-D – Konrad Rudolph Aug 22 '11 at 19:05
  • :) If you click row:2,col:1 (counting from 1, not 0) on 'Plans', I'm living in the upper left corner. I can tell you when the Berg will be build. – user unknown Aug 23 '11 at 01:24
  • There are many artificial `mountains', built from ruins of WW II, the highest being the [Teufelsberg](http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teufelsberg) from 55m above NN to 115m, which is a difference of 60m. The volume is about 12 Mio. m³. You have to multiply 60 with 33 to reach 2000m (the Netherlands is about 0m above NN) and you have to take 33 to the 3rd power, to get the factor for the material which is needed then. 33³ is about 36 000, and 12 * 10e6 * 36k = 432*10e9. I guess you can't imagine such numbers well - but 36 000 times the Teufelsberg might be a better measurement. – user unknown Aug 23 '11 at 01:42
  • Such a structure would take up far too much valuable ground in what's already a small, overcrowded country. Not only would a large number of people loose their homes, it would also cover most of our natural preserves which are protected against any and all construction by national, EU, and in some cases UN treaties and laws. And it'd harm agriculture, a very influential lobby. – jwenting Aug 23 '11 at 06:16
  • As to "seriously considered", remember it's summertime when newspapers will print the most ludicrous stuff to fill their pages. – jwenting Aug 23 '11 at 06:17
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    @jwenting, here in Australia, it is wintertime, and the newspapers print ludicrous stuff all year around. :-) – Oddthinking Aug 23 '11 at 12:32
  • Dont worry i am sure that the US with guarentee the funding of it... – Chad Aug 23 '11 at 15:55
  • Sounds like a great place to store spent fuel rods. – Moab Aug 24 '11 at 01:17
  • I have heard of proposals to turn landfills into ski areas once the "mountain" of garbage is too big to add to any more. I doubt anyone would want to ski with all the stink, though. – oosterwal Aug 24 '11 at 14:44
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    Bear in mind that our ancestors back in the 17th century emptied [out a lake only slightly larger than modern-day Boston] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haarlemmermeer) using windmills because they figured it'd make a nice place for an airport in a couple hundred years. More recently, we built up plans for [several hundred miles of storm surge barriers] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deltawerken) after a flood 60 years ago, then modified them more or less on the fly in order to preserve the fresh/saltwater ecology of the area... – Shadur Aug 25 '11 at 07:01
  • ... Just saying, we Dutch have something of a history of terraforming engineering that people from larger countries might regard as crazy. Don't discount this one just because it sounds ludicrous on the face of it. – Shadur Aug 25 '11 at 07:02
  • The [xkcd What If blog](http://what-if.xkcd.com/95/) suggests that The Berg isn't so much a plan for a future mountain, as some weird joke about the existence of a mountain. – Oddthinking May 07 '14 at 02:25
  • https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smiggin_Holes_2010_Winter_Olympic_bid – Andrew Grimm Jan 16 '17 at 12:21

1 Answers1

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Not currently

Its domain (www.diebergkomter.nl) is currently for sale, a strong indication the initiative has run out of steam. But that doesn't mean it was never considered.

Not officially

It has never been an official proposal or even idea by the Dutch government. Creating a new province, Flevoland, out of an inland sea, was. Building the Delta works to protect the provinces of Zeeland and Zuid-Holland from the sea, was too.
Now it's hard to prove an absence, but in all news articles I could dig up, no governmental involvement was mentioned.

But feasibly

The original proposal was made in jest, in a July 2011 op-ed on the Dutch news site Nu.nl. It was called "Berg!", which translates to "Mountain!" and is still accessible on the site.
It was met with enthusiasm by more people than Thijs had anticipated. Several sporting federations were interested. Technical universities were too. Feasibility studies were done. The proposal was settled on a hollow mountain; a solid mountain would be much too heavy, depressing the land in a 50 km. radius. A hollow mountain would also allow for the inside to be used for agriculture or energy storage. The most likely location was decided as off the coast of Noord-Holland.

Not anymore

The latest news article I could find, was from December 2012. It read that Thijs Zonneveld had let go of the idea as unattainable, mostly because of its costs — an estimated €4-7 000 000 000 000.

Conclusion

The best description of the seriousness of the project was perhaps given by Zonneveld himself, according to Reuters:

"It was not serious but the next day there was such a serious response from people who had actually been thinking about it and calculating stuff that it made me realise I was not the only one who'd had that idea," Zonneveld said.

[...]

"People may think this is a publicity stunt but this is not true. Publicity is the means because if people don't know about it, it cannot be done. The goal however is to build this mountain," Zonneveld said.

SQB
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