Nuclear power in Europe

The construction of Olkiluoto 3, Finland’s fifth commercial nuclear reactor, involves 1,200 workers from different countries, who live in barracks far away from the rest of society.
The workers come from around Europe: Poland, Portugal, Kosovo, Albania, and Germany.
The barracks are about 20 kilometres away from any services or local people, and the workers’ contacts with the rest of Finnish society do not function very well in general. (more…)

Prague – The Greens did not manage to pass the 5 percent threshold in the late May legislative elections, which means there is virtually no opposition in the Lower Chamber of the Czech Parliament against plans on nuclear energy build-ups in the Czech Republic.

This means that the center-right coalition can easily implement its nuclear energy program, which includes building new reactors in the Temelín nuclear plant and modernizing the Dukovany nuclear plant. (more…)

The decision of France’s AREVA to take a EUR400mn charge on its Finnish nuclear reactor project, combined with a planned French nuclear plant shutdown is hurting AREVA’s bottom line.

After state-owned AREVA, the world’s largest uranium miner, announced last week it would take a 400 million euros (US$491mn) charge due to cost overruns at its Finnish nuclear plant project, Standard & Poor’s Monday downgraded the company to a `BBB+’ rating, citing continued weakened profitability. (more…)

Constant hold-ups, skyrocketing costs, faulty construction…Finland’s new Olkiluoto reactor, touted as the great white hope for Europe’s nuclear sector, is looking more and more like a great white elephant – and casting a fat black shadow over the whole industry. (more…)

Nuclear safety authorities in four countries are assessing the significance of undocumented welding on primary circuit piping for the EPR reactor under construction at Olkiluoto-3, Petteri Tiippana, director of the nuclear reactor regulation department at the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority STUK, told Platts in an interview Thursday.

But Tiippana said that contrary to a statement made Wednesday by Marie-Pierre Comets, a commissioner of French nuclear safety authority ASN, regulators from Finland, France, the UK and the US are not preparing a joint statement on the piping quality issue.

A spokesman for the UK Health and Safety Executive said that the HSE and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission had observed a joint inspection of the piping made by the French company Nordon for the Olkiluoto-3 EPR. He said, “any action relating to this is for ASN and STUK, but we are not currently planning to issue a joint statement.” HSE and the NRC are currently in the process of reviewing the “next-generation” EPR reactor design, but are not overseeing construction of EPR units, unlike STUK and ASN. The HSE spokesman said the piping quality is “not a design issue, it’s a quality issue.”

Olivier Gupta, ASN’s director for power reactor regulation, said through a spokeswoman Thursday that “there will be no joint statement” on the piping issue. He said Comets had meant to refer to the “joint inspection” of the Nordon facilities by STUK and ASN, which was observed by representatives of NRC and HSE. The spokeswoman said Comets had “made a mistake.”

The piping was manufactured by Nordon, a subcontractor to Areva, the French vendor which is supplying the nuclear part of the Olkiluoto-3 unit under a turnkey contract to utility Teollisuuden Voima Oy. Nordon, based in Nancy in eastern France, is a unit of the Fives group and has long been a major supplier of piping for nuclear power plants.

In October 2009, STUK found that small cracks in piping made for the main coolant lines of Olkiluoto-3 had been repaired with welding procedures that were not documented.

Tiippana said the piping is still in France and that analysis of the significance of the undocumented welding could be finished within several weeks. STUK will then do final inspections, probably before summer, he said. Until the piping is approved by STUK, it cannot be transported to Olkiluoto.

The main coolant lines for the EPR must be manufactured to very high quality standards and documentation must substantiate that quality, because the safety case for those high-pressure lines assumes they will not rupture suddenly.

In an unprecedented initiative, STUK, ASN and HSE issued a tripartite regulatory statement last November expressing concern about the instrumentation and control system architecture proposed for the EPR in their three countries.

Areva’s 1,600- to 1,700 MW-class EPR reactor is under construction at Olkiluoto-3 in Finland and Flamanville-3 in France, and the design is under regulatory review for construction in the UK and the US.

BERLIN, Feb 12, 2010 (IPS) – The enormous technical and financial risks involved in the construction and operation of new nuclear power plants make them prohibitive for private investors, rebutting the thesis of a renaissance in nuclear energy, say several independent European studies.

The risks include high construction costs, likely long delays in building, extended periods of depreciation of equipment inherent to the construction and operation of new power plants and the lack of guarantees for prices of electricity. (more…)

COPENHAGEN — Six Greenpeace activists Monday boarded a ship carrying French-made steam turbines bound for a new nuclear power station in Finland, the environmental group said.

The protestors climbed on board the Happy Ranger as it made its way through the Fehmarn Belt strait between Denmark and Germany and unfurled banners including one which read “Nuclear madness, made in France”. (more…)

The executives of electric utilities worldwide are dreaming of a renaissance in nuclear power. But problems with a new, state-of-the-art reactor in Finland suggest that this is unlikely to happen. The industry’s alternative strategy is to modernize older plants to drastically extend reactor lifetimes.

The managers at Finnish electric utility TVO expressed one last wish before ordering what would be the world’s largest nuclear power plant from Siemens and the French nuclear power conglomerate Areva. They wanted the reactor to be painted oxblood red and white, the traditional colors of the picturesque summer homes on Finland’s western coast. (more…)

OLKILUOTO, Finland — As the Obama administration tries to steer America toward cleaner sources of energy, it would do well to consider the cautionary tale of this new-generation nuclear reactor site.

The massive power plant under construction on muddy terrain on this Finnish island was supposed to be the showpiece of a nuclear renaissance. The most powerful reactor ever built, its modular design was supposed to make it faster and cheaper to build. And it was supposed to be safer, too. (more…)

Power company TVO denies that Finland’s Nuclear and Radiation Safety Authority (STUK) has threatened to stop construction of a nuclear reactor at its plant in Olkiluoto. Nonetheless both TVO and French contractor Areva say they take the criticism seriously.

TVO and Areva admit that plans for an automation safety system have been delayed, but say that STUK has not suggested it would order a stop to construction for this or any other reason. (more…)