Further nuclear reactor construction delays could lead to electricity shortage

Safety considerations postpone completion - Greenpeace "astonished"

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Completion of Finland's fifth commerical nuclear reactor, which is being built in Olkiluoto, where two of the four existing facilities are located, is to be delayed further. The consortium formed by the French Areva and Germany's Siemens informed the electric utility TVO on Friday that a further delay in construction means that the plant will not be ready for use until 2011.
     This means that the reactor, with a planned output of 1,600 megawatts, will begin operations about two years later than was originally planned. In the interim, Finland will be more dependent on electricity imports. When it is completed, the new power plant will supply about ten per cent of Finland's energy output.
      Taisto Turunen, director-general of the energy section of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, says that production forecasts have assumed that the third unit at Olkiluoto would be completed on schedule. The delay would mean that in the winter of 2011 Finland will have to keep consumption down during times of peak use.
     The lower level of relatively cheap nuclear-generated electricity will also put pressure on the price of Finnish electricity.
     
Under the new timetable announced by Areva on Friday, the main construction work on the reactor building will continue into the winter of 2009, and not the summer of 2008 as previously promised. Originally, the whole installation is supposed to have been ready for use in 2009.
      Martin Landtman, the head of the nuclear power construction project for TVO, says that the company cannot say when exactly when the plant will be ready until the company has made an assessment on how to minimise impact of the delay.
     Areva says that the security requirements mean that the construction has been more demanding than it had previously understood. The basic processes in the new installation are based on existing technology, but the upgraded security demands came as a surprise.
     The reactor building must now withstand a plane crash, and the reactor building must have a "core catcher" beneath it to prevent a leak out of the containment vessel if the core melts in a nuclear accident.
     "The delay that was announced this time is specifically the result of slow progress at the construction site itself. Having to withstand a plane crash, and the requirement of a core catcher mean that there will have to be great changes, compared with previous nuclear plant. These changes require more work", Landtman says.
     
TVO did not want to estimate the costs of the delay in lost electricity sales.
     When the previous delay was announced in December last year, Helsingin Sanomat estimated on the basis of expert calculations that a delay of a year and a half would cost nearly EUR 600 million in lost electricity production.
     
The environmental organisation Greenpeace commented on the announcement of a further delay in the construction of the power plant by saying that the project continues to wrestle with chronic quality and security problems.
     "It is astonishing that the builder of the reactor says at this point that making the reactor building capable of withstanding a plane crash is one of the reasons for the delay", says Harri Lammi of Greenpeace.
     "When the building permit was issued, it was claimed that the reactor would withstand a plane crash, although many suspected that it would be very challenging. The official requirement was known by the planners already from 2001", Lammi says.
     Greenpeace demanded that TVO and the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority immediately publish a list of the 1,500 quality and security problems that the project has experienced.
     Greenpeace claims that the planning of the reactor does not meet the security requirements set by Finnish legislation, even though Finns were told that this was the case.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Three Greenpeace protesters come down from crane at nuclear construction site (31.5.2007)
  Greenpeace stages protest at nuclear construction site - Finnish authorities want explanation (29.5.2007)
  Construction delays at nuclear plant spark row over compensation (1.2.2007)
  Head of nuclear construction project says schedule may be too tight (18.12.2006)
  Further delay in construction of Olkiluoto-3 nuclear reactor (5.12.2006)

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