Critics of nuclear energy in Parliament call for more clarity on waste problem

Pekkarinen defends Fennovoima and believes company will find solution

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Members of Parliament of the Green League and other MPs who take a sceptical view of nuclear energy are urging Fennovoima, which hopes to build one of two new nuclear reactors endorsed by the government, to report on how it plans to dispose of its nuclear waste.
      Fennovoima, which is owned jointly by the German E.On and a number of Finnish companies, had not yet revealed any waste disposal plans when it applied for a licence to build a new nuclear reactor.
     
Parliament resumed debate on the nuclear issue on Tuesday, after it had been interrupted by the discussion of the Greek economic crisis.
      Critics of nuclear energy drew attention to the fact that the increased capacity of nuclear generation would make Finland an exporter of nuclear-generated electricity.
      Doubts were also raised over the idea that increased nuclear generating capacity would lead to an end of the construction of domestic nuclear energy.
     
The government has set as a condition for the approval of Fennovoima’s application for the construction of a new nuclear reactor that the company must give an accounting of its nuclear waste processing.
      According to Ville Niinistö, the chairman of the Green Parliamentary group, Fennovoima seems to assume that Posiva, a company set up for the final storage of nuclear waste, would welcome its waste products with open arms, and not just those of TVO and Fortum.
      Posiva is owned jointly by TVO and Fortum, the owners of Finland’s existing four commercial nuclear reactors. A fifth commercial reactor is being built on behalf of TVO in Olkiluoto, the location of that company’s two existing reactors.
     
Minister of Economic Affairs Mauri Pekkarinen (Centre Party) says that nowhere in the world are applicants for the construction of nuclear plants required to invest billions in a waste storage facility before applying for a licence.
      Pekkarinen says that Fennovoima will have to give a concrete plan for waste disposal, and that it might actually be better if the company would find solution that is different from the caverns being built by Posiva.
     
Centre Party MP Mikko Lintilä said that Posiva once presented its caverns to Parliament as “national” solutions, and he wondered why Fennovoima’s waste could not fit in.
      Pekkarinen sharply denied the suspicion voiced in Parliament that because of E.On, Finland would be accepting nuclear waste from other parts of the world. “This is not in any way possible. Each country needs to deal with its waste on its own”, Pekkarinen said.
     
Green MP Oras Tynkkynen alleged that with its new nuclear plants, Finland would produce plenty of electricity for export. “Our electricity will be consumed elsewhere, and we will be left with the waste.”
      “Electricity cannot be stored. After these two licences, we will be producing more electricity than we need ourselves, and naturally, in such a situation, electricity will be exported. However, even after these licences are granted, the output of our electricity production will not be sufficient in all weeks of the year to meet Finnish consumption”, Pekkarinen said in reply.
     
The Greens sought to spark more debate on Tuesday by putting forward ten questions that they wanted Pekkarinen to answer.
      The gesture, which made the Greens look something like an opposition party, did not get much sympathy from their government partners.
      Markku Laukkanen (Centre) noted that the Greens seem to accept the other side of the package, a promise to promote renewable energy.
      Pekkarinen also said that the Greens are taking credit in public for the renewable energy package, “even though they outsourced themselves from the construction work for renewable energy in recent weeks.”


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Nuclear waste tomb soon to reach final depth (10.5.2010)
  Government endorses two new nuclear reactors (22.4.2010)
  Nuclear plant application to come before Parliament this spring (1.3.2010)

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