Why New Nuclear Power? – the Finnish Case

Speaker : Mr Ami Rastas, Director of TVO, (Engineering)

The EU is currently dependent on external suppliers for 50% of its energy needs, and the dependency is forecast to increase to about 70% over the next twenty years. Finland already depends on foreign imports for 72% of its energy with a considerable fraction of imports originating from one country, Russia.

One third of electricity in Finland is obtained from domestic resources, such as water, wood and peat. The role of the renewable energy sources has been important, as wood waste and other biomass have been used traditionally with modern and efficient CHP technology. Nuclear power provides one quarter and fossil fuels slightly over one fifth of Finland’s energy needs, the rest of the consumption being covered by imports from neighbouring countries. Strong actions are already being taken for enhanced energy efficiency.

Based on deliberations of growing electricity consumption, TVO applied in November 2000 for approval by the Finnish Government to build a new nuclear plant unit, which would help to satisfy the increasing demand for energy by 2010 without increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

Preparations for disposal of the spent fuel from the Finnish nuclear plants also are in progress. The plan to build a final repository for the spent nuclear fuel of Olkiluoto nuclear site was approved by the Finnish Parliament in May 2001.