What could go wrong?Finnish reactor a setback for nuclear energy cause by Tom Sullivan news@mediacorp.com.sg 05:55 AM Dec 18, 2009
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STOCKHOLM - More countries are turning to nuclear power as an alternative energy source but a controversial nuclear power plant in Finland - which is €3 billion ($6.1 billion) over budget with several construction irregularities - is being held up as an example of all that could go wrong in such ventures.
The Olkiluoto power plant, located on Finland's Baltic Sea coast, will be the world's largest nuclear reactor when completed. The first nuclear plant to be built in western Europe or the United States in over a decade, it was heralded as the flagship for a new generation of safer, more powerful and efficient nuclear power stations.
However, nuclear safety regulators have catalogued about 3,000 errors - including cracks in the reactor's concrete foundations, the misplacement of radioactivity sensors and the faulty welding of pipes - and have halted construction at the site more than a dozen times since 2004. Slated to go into operation this year, it is at least four years behind schedule and about 50 per cent over budget.
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Nuclear waste from the plant will be stored in deep underground tunnels, a cause for concern for some 30,000 people living nearby. Finnish environmental groups say any radioactive leak into the Baltic Sea would endanger residents. They also claim that new nuclear power plants in Finland will have a negligible effect on climate change. "The plant has a disastrous track record so far and when it is operating, it will only increase the dangers associated with nuclear waste," says Mr Lauri Myllyvirta, Greenpeace Finland's energy spokesperson. But Areva, the French company that is building Olkiluoto, says the plant is failsafe and even in the event of a reactor core meltdown, the reactor is sealed inside a casing which prevents any leaks. Areva has been locked in endless quality and safety disputes with the Finnish utilities firm which commissioned the plant. Last month, regulators in Finland, France and Britain demanded a redesign of the plant's safety and control systems, which were too closely linked to properly handle an emergency. "If they aren't independent, then a failure in the normal systems can cause a failure of the safety system," said Mr Petteri Tiippana, Finland's nuclear safety regulator. Mr Tiippana says that many errors have been caused by a lack of awareness among the site's 4,500 workers, many of whom are more accustomed to building oil- and coal-powered stations. Chief operations officer at Areva and a former project director at Olkiluoto, Mr Philippe Knoche, explains that as nuclear power construction has been abandoned in western Europe and the US for more than a decade, there is a need to build up expertise. He also insists that safety is never compromised: "The important point is that every single issue is tracked and analysed and safety and quality is never called into question." Despite the project's negative publicity, supporters of nuclear power insist it is a safe energy alternative that does not emit carbon dioxide.
"In the '90s our Parliament refused to give permission for Finland's fifth nuclear reactor, but now the debate is about how many more will be built," said Mr Kimmo Gronlund, director of the Social Science Research Institute at Abo Akademi University. Nuclear power is a fast growing market: China currently has 20 plants under construction, the British government has announced plans for ten new plants and lawmakers in the United States are considering federal incentives for up to a hundred new plants. Britain, China, India and France have already ordered similar power stations to the Finnish model from Areva.
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