A few years ago there were many reasons not to be happy with the arrival of a new nuclear reactor in Finland. Especially since the work of this EPR of French technology took twelve years of delay. And then there are the financial slippages: the final bill went from 3 to 9 billion euros. It all ended up in court. But today, the Finns seem satisfied to finally be able to take advantage of this new source of electricity.
>> In Finland, the first European EPR nuclear reactor is expected: “We will no longer have to seek this energy beyond our borders”
The first reason is that Finland is the only Nordic country to suffer from a major energy deficit. In Sweden you have hydroelectricity, in Norway you have gas and oil, in Iceland you have geothermal energy, but none of that in Finland.
Another advantage with this EPR: Finland will also reduce its CO2 emissions. It is in particular what convinced the political parties which, at the beginning, were refractory, and in particular the ecologists. “In our new declaration of principles, there is no mention at all of nuclear power.explains Veli Liikanen, general secretary of the Finnish Greens. We are just saying that we want the development of any technology that is low carbon and pro-environmental”.
The Finnish Greens, however, remain critical of this gigantic EPR, the largest reactor in Europe. But for lack of anything better, they are no longer against the principle of nuclear power: a rather rare position among the European Greens. And with the war in Ukraine, this nuclear electricity is even more welcome, especially since the majority of Finland’s energy imports come from Russia. By electrifying its economy, Finland will therefore be able to buy less coal and Russian gas. This will be all the more tempting as with the EPR, the price of electricity, for households as well as for businesses, will drop.
Finland therefore intends to continue along this path. This reactor, called Olkiluoto-3, is the fifth in the country and should eventually supply 14% of the country’s electricity, which has planned to build two new reactors. On the other hand, a project will not be done. Or at least not immediately: it is the one planned for Pyhäjoki, in the north-west of the country because the builder was to be the Russian Rusatom.