Pekkarinen calls for additional information from nuclear safety authority over working practices at Olkiluoto reactor site

Welding report adequate, but ministry wants international comparisons on monitoring

Mauri Pekkarinen

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The Ministry of Employment and the Economy, or more precisely Minister of Economic Affairs Mauri Pekkarinen (Centre Party), has requested the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) provide additional information on the work at the construction site for the new nuclear plant at Olkiluoto.
      Earlier this week STUK filed a report to the ministry on alleged welding problems at the site.
     
Pekkarinen expressed satisfaction with the paper, but wanted international comparisons on monitoring, foreign assessments on STUK, and further information on the principles and practical aspects of STUK’s external communications.
      It seems unlikely that any very far-reaching new studies were required, as the time-frame given for the presentation of new information was one whole working day.
     
In the background to the ministry’s demands are the environmental group Greenpeace and two Finnish MPs. Greenpeace has long pointed to alleged safety violations on the site of Olkiluoto III, Finland’s fifth nuclear reactor, and on cover-ups associated with the shortcomings.
      This past week the activists received flanking support from the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE, who sent a crew to Olkiluoto to make a programme about the issue.
      The YLE programme caused waves when it was claimed that reactor builders Areva and their sub-contractor Bouygues had prohibited employees from speaking out about the ongoing construction work and problems associated with it.
      The Greenpeace views have been strongly in evidence in written questions posted by two MPs, Krista Kiuru (SDP) and Matti Kangas (Left Alliance), who asked whether the government intends to set up a panel of independent international experts to oversee work at the site.
      Greenpeace believes construction of the new reactor should be suspended immediately and not restarted until such an independent body has examined working practices at Olkiluoto.
     
STUK official Petteri Tiippana says that the short deadline will not cause problems.
      The information has already been collected and it will be perfectly possible to pass it to the Ministry of Empolyment and the Economy today, Friday.
      Equally, he is untroubled by the references to international comparisons, arguing that Finland goes further than the norm in its monitoring procedures.
      He cites the case of Areva, the French half of the Franco-German consortium supplying the new reactor, whose senior management have regularly cried foul over what they regard as the excessively tough line taken by Finnish authorities.
      Tiippana says that international monitors, probably from the IAEA, will be invited in, but only at a later stage in the project.
      It is unclear yet exactly who will be sending out the invitation - STUK or the reactor’s end-user, the power company TVO.
     
Greenpeace has not been happy with STUK’s report on welding operations at the site, and is also unlikely to be satisfied with the additional information.
      In the view of Greenpeace, the basic issue is one of the “fox in the henhouse” variety: according to Finnish Greenpeace’s Lauri Myllyvirta, STUK is overseeing its own operations and pushing the responsibility onto the shoulders of TVO.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Greenpeace calls for suspension of construction on new nuclear reactor and safety review (14.8.2008)
  Pekkarinen: Export of nuclear electricity could compel Finland to accept waste from abroad (20.8.2008)

Links:
  Greenpeace Blog: Potential whistleblowers gagged at Finland´s Olkiluoto 3 reactor
  Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant (Wikipedia)
  Olkiluoto III European Pressurized Water Reactor

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