Olkiluoto
Encyclopedia
The Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant is on Olkiluoto Island, which is on the shore of the Gulf of Bothnia
in the municipality of Eurajoki
in western Finland
. It is one of Finland's two nuclear power plant
s, the other being the two-unit VVER
Loviisa Nuclear Power Plant
. The plant is operated by Teollisuuden Voima
, a subsidiary of Pohjolan Voima
.
The Olkiluoto plant consists of two Boiling Water Reactors (BWR
s) with 860 MWe
each. Unit 3, the first EPR (European Pressurized water Reactor
) is under construction, but various problems with workmanship and supervision have created costly delays which have been the subject of an inquiry by the Finnish nuclear regulator Säteilyturvakeskus
(STUK). A license for a fourth reactor to be built at the site was granted by the Finnish parliament in July 2010.
s with 860 MW
each. These were supplied by ASEA-Atom, now a part of Westinghouse Electric Sweden AB
. Turbine generators were supplied by Stal-Laval. The units' architecture was designed by ASEA-Atom. Reactor pressure vessels were constructed by Uddcomb Sweden AB, and reactor internal parts,
mechanical components by Finnatom. Electrical equipment was supplied by Oy Strömberg Ab
. Unit 1 was constructed by Atomirakennus and unit 2 by Jukola and Työyhtymä. Unit 1 achieved its initial criticality in July 1978 and it started commercial operations in October 1979. Unit 2 achieved its initial criticality in October 1979 and it started commercial operations in July 1982.
The first license application for the third reactor (EPR
) was made in December 2000 and the original commissioning date of the third reactor was set to May 2009. However, in May 2009 the plant was "at least three and a half years behind schedule and more than 50 percent over-budget". The commissioning deadline has been postponed several times and as of November 2011 operation is set to start in 2014.
The reactor pressure vessel was installed on 21 June 2010.
The project was started by Areva NP, a joint venture of AREVA
and Siemens
, but Siemens withdrew and sold its share to AREVA. Work began on the Olkiluoto EPR in 2005, but various problems with workmanship have created delays:
According to Professor Stephen Thomas
, "Olkiluoto has become an example of all that can go wrong in economic terms with new reactors". Areva
and the utility involved "are in bitter dispute over who will bear the cost overruns and there is a real risk now that the utility will default". The project has also been criticized by the Finnish nuclear safety regulator, STUK, because "instructions have not been observed in the welding of pipes and the supervision of welding." STUK has also noted that there have been delays in submitting proper paperwork. Olkiluoto 3 was supposed to be the first "third generation" reactor which would pave the way for a new wave of identical reactors - safe, affordable, and delivered on time - across Europe. The delays and cost overruns have had knock-on effects in other countries.
Yleisradio
quotes an anonymous Polish labourer who was alledgedly paid 1.5 € per hour in Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant construction project in Finland
. This is below the minimum wage by law and the national agreements of the construction industry.
After the Finnish Nuclear Energy Act was amended in 1994 to specify that all nuclear waste
produced in Finland must be disposed of in Finland, Olkiluoto was selected in 2000 as the site for a (very) long-term underground storage facility
for Finland's spent nuclear fuel.
The facility, named "Onkalo" ("cave" or "cavity") is being built in the granite
bedrock
a few miles from the Olkiluoto power plants. The municipality of Eurajoki issued a building permit for the facility in August 2003 and excavation began in 2004.
The plans for the facility consist of four phases:
The Onkalo repository is expected to be large enough to accept canisters of spent fuel for around one hundred years, i.e. until around 2120. At this point, the final encapsulation and burial will take place and the access tunnel backfilled and sealed.
Danish director Michael Madsen has co-written and directed a feature-length documentary Into Eternity
where the initial phase of the excavation is featured and experts interviewed. The director's special emphasis is on the semantic difficulties in meaningfully marking the depository as dangerous for people in the distant future.
Gulf of Bothnia
The Gulf of Bothnia is the northernmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It is situated between Finland's west coast and Sweden's east coast. In the south of the gulf lie the Åland Islands, between the Sea of Åland and the Archipelago Sea.-Name:...
in the municipality of Eurajoki
Eurajoki
Eurajoki is a municipality of Finland located in the region of Satakunta in the province of Western Finland. The municipality has a population of and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is ....
in western Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
. It is one of Finland's two nuclear power plant
Nuclear power plant
A nuclear power plant is a thermal power station in which the heat source is one or more nuclear reactors. As in a conventional thermal power station the heat is used to generate steam which drives a steam turbine connected to a generator which produces electricity.Nuclear power plants are usually...
s, the other being the two-unit VVER
VVER
The VVER, or WWER, is a series of pressurised water reactors originally developed by the Soviet Union, and now Russia, by OKB Gidropress. Power output ranges from 440 MWe to 1200 MWe with the latest Russian development of the design...
Loviisa Nuclear Power Plant
Loviisa Nuclear Power Plant
Loviisa Nuclear Power Plant , is a nuclear power plant located close to the Finnish city of Loviisa. It houses two Soviet-designed VVER-440/213 PWR reactors, each with a capacity of 488 MW....
. The plant is operated by Teollisuuden Voima
Teollisuuden Voima
Teollisuuden Voima Oyj is a Finnish nuclear power company owned by a consortium of power and industrial companies. The biggest shareholders are Pohjolan Voima and Fortum...
, a subsidiary of Pohjolan Voima
Pohjolan Voima
Pohjolan Voima Oy is the second biggest Finnish energy company, which owns hydropower and thermal power plants . Pohjolan Voima is a founder and main shareholder of the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant operator Teollisuuden Voima Oy...
.
The Olkiluoto plant consists of two Boiling Water Reactors (BWR
Boiling water reactor
The boiling water reactor is a type of light water nuclear reactor used for the generation of electrical power. It is the second most common type of electricity-generating nuclear reactor after the pressurized water reactor , also a type of light water nuclear reactor...
s) with 860 MWe
Watt
The watt is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units , named after the Scottish engineer James Watt . The unit, defined as one joule per second, measures the rate of energy conversion.-Definition:...
each. Unit 3, the first EPR (European Pressurized water Reactor
European Pressurized Reactor
The EPR is a third generation pressurized water reactor design. It has been designed and developed mainly by Framatome , Electricité de France in France, and Siemens AG in Germany...
) is under construction, but various problems with workmanship and supervision have created costly delays which have been the subject of an inquiry by the Finnish nuclear regulator Säteilyturvakeskus
Säteilyturvakeskus
Säteilyturvakeskus is the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, a government agency tasked with nuclear safety and radiation monitoring in Finland...
(STUK). A license for a fourth reactor to be built at the site was granted by the Finnish parliament in July 2010.
Units 1 and 2
Units 1 and 2 consists of two BWRBoiling water reactor
The boiling water reactor is a type of light water nuclear reactor used for the generation of electrical power. It is the second most common type of electricity-generating nuclear reactor after the pressurized water reactor , also a type of light water nuclear reactor...
s with 860 MW
Watt
The watt is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units , named after the Scottish engineer James Watt . The unit, defined as one joule per second, measures the rate of energy conversion.-Definition:...
each. These were supplied by ASEA-Atom, now a part of Westinghouse Electric Sweden AB
Westinghouse Electric Company
Westinghouse Electric Company LLC is a nuclear power company, offering a wide range of nuclear products and services to utilities throughout the world, including nuclear fuel, service and maintenance, instrumentation and control and advanced nuclear plant designs...
. Turbine generators were supplied by Stal-Laval. The units' architecture was designed by ASEA-Atom. Reactor pressure vessels were constructed by Uddcomb Sweden AB, and reactor internal parts,
mechanical components by Finnatom. Electrical equipment was supplied by Oy Strömberg Ab
Stromberg (company)
Stromberg or Oy Strömberg Ab, was a company founded by Gottfrid Strömberg in 1889 in Helsinki, Finland, and manufactured electromechanical products such as: generators, electric motors and small power plants. The company was founded initially as Gottfrid Strömbergin sähköyhtiö in Finnish, Gottfrid...
. Unit 1 was constructed by Atomirakennus and unit 2 by Jukola and Työyhtymä. Unit 1 achieved its initial criticality in July 1978 and it started commercial operations in October 1979. Unit 2 achieved its initial criticality in October 1979 and it started commercial operations in July 1982.
Unit 3
European Pressurized Reactor
The EPR is a third generation pressurized water reactor design. It has been designed and developed mainly by Framatome , Electricité de France in France, and Siemens AG in Germany...
) was made in December 2000 and the original commissioning date of the third reactor was set to May 2009. However, in May 2009 the plant was "at least three and a half years behind schedule and more than 50 percent over-budget". The commissioning deadline has been postponed several times and as of November 2011 operation is set to start in 2014.
The reactor pressure vessel was installed on 21 June 2010.
The project was started by Areva NP, a joint venture of AREVA
Areva
AREVA is a French public multinational industrial conglomerate headquartered in the Tour Areva in Courbevoie, Paris. AREVA is mainly known for nuclear power; it also has interests in other energy projects. It was created on 3 September 2001, by the merger of Framatome , Cogema and...
and Siemens
Siemens
Siemens may refer toSiemens, a German family name carried by generations of telecommunications industrialists, including:* Werner von Siemens , inventor, founder of Siemens AG...
, but Siemens withdrew and sold its share to AREVA. Work began on the Olkiluoto EPR in 2005, but various problems with workmanship have created delays:
First to come to light were irregularities in foundation concrete, which caused work to slow on site for months. Later it was found that subcontractors had provided heavy forgings that were not up to project standards and which had to be re-cast. An apparent problem constructing the reactor's unique double-containment structure has also caused delays.
According to Professor Stephen Thomas
Stephen Thomas (professor)
Stephen Thomas is a professor at the University of Greenwich Business School, working in the area of energy policy. Before moving to the University of Greenwich in 2001, Thomas worked for 22 years at the University of Sussex.-Research work:...
, "Olkiluoto has become an example of all that can go wrong in economic terms with new reactors". Areva
Areva
AREVA is a French public multinational industrial conglomerate headquartered in the Tour Areva in Courbevoie, Paris. AREVA is mainly known for nuclear power; it also has interests in other energy projects. It was created on 3 September 2001, by the merger of Framatome , Cogema and...
and the utility involved "are in bitter dispute over who will bear the cost overruns and there is a real risk now that the utility will default". The project has also been criticized by the Finnish nuclear safety regulator, STUK, because "instructions have not been observed in the welding of pipes and the supervision of welding." STUK has also noted that there have been delays in submitting proper paperwork. Olkiluoto 3 was supposed to be the first "third generation" reactor which would pave the way for a new wave of identical reactors - safe, affordable, and delivered on time - across Europe. The delays and cost overruns have had knock-on effects in other countries.
Yleisradio
Yleisradio
The Finnish Broadcasting Company , abbreviated to YLE , is Finland's national broadcasting company, founded in 1926. YLE is a public-broadcasting organization which shares many of its characteristics with its British counterpart, the BBC, on which it was largely modelled...
quotes an anonymous Polish labourer who was alledgedly paid 1.5 € per hour in Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant construction project in Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
. This is below the minimum wage by law and the national agreements of the construction industry.
Unit 4
On 14 February 2008, Teollisuuden Voima submitted an environmental impact assessment of the unit four to the Ministry of Employment and Economy. On 21 April 2010, the Government of Finland decided to grant a permit to Teollisuuden Voima for construction of the fourth reactor in Olkiluoto. The decision was approved by the Parliament on 1 July 2010. If constructed, the fourth unit would be a PWR or BWR with a power output of 1,000 to 1,800 MWe.Onkalo waste repository
Radioactive waste
Radioactive wastes are wastes that contain radioactive material. Radioactive wastes are usually by-products of nuclear power generation and other applications of nuclear fission or nuclear technology, such as research and medicine...
produced in Finland must be disposed of in Finland, Olkiluoto was selected in 2000 as the site for a (very) long-term underground storage facility
Deep geological repository
A deep geological repository is a nuclear waste repository excavated deep within a stable geologic environment...
for Finland's spent nuclear fuel.
The facility, named "Onkalo" ("cave" or "cavity") is being built in the granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
bedrock
Bedrock
In stratigraphy, bedrock is the native consolidated rock underlying the surface of a terrestrial planet, usually the Earth. Above the bedrock is usually an area of broken and weathered unconsolidated rock in the basal subsoil...
a few miles from the Olkiluoto power plants. The municipality of Eurajoki issued a building permit for the facility in August 2003 and excavation began in 2004.
The plans for the facility consist of four phases:
- Phase 1 (2004–09) will focus on excavation of the large access tunnel to the facility, spiraling downward to a depth of 420 metres (1,378 ft).
- Phase 2 (2009–11) will continue the excavation to a final depth of 520 metres (1,706 ft). The characteristics of the bedrock will be studied in order to adapt the layout of the repository.
- Around 2012, Posiva Oy, the agency responsible for the facility's construction, plans to submit an application for a license to construct the repository and any adaptations it requires. This is expected to take up to three years.
- Phase 3, the construction of the repository, is expected to begin about 2015.
- Phase 4, the encapsulation and burial of areas filled with spent fuel, is projected to begin in 2020.
The Onkalo repository is expected to be large enough to accept canisters of spent fuel for around one hundred years, i.e. until around 2120. At this point, the final encapsulation and burial will take place and the access tunnel backfilled and sealed.
Danish director Michael Madsen has co-written and directed a feature-length documentary Into Eternity
Into Eternity (documentary)
Into Eternity is a feature documentary film directed by Danish director Michael Madsen, released in 2010. It follows the construction of the Onkalo Waste Repository at the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant on the island of Olkiluoto, Finland...
where the initial phase of the excavation is featured and experts interviewed. The director's special emphasis is on the semantic difficulties in meaningfully marking the depository as dangerous for people in the distant future.
See also
- Nuclear power in FinlandNuclear power in FinlandAs of 2008, Finland's nuclear power program has four nuclear reactors in two power plants. The first of these came into operation in 1977. In 2007 they provided 28.4% of Finland's electricity. They are among the world's most productive, with average capacity factors of 94% in the 1990s...
External links
- Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority in Finland
- European Pressurised Reactor at Olkiluoto 3, Finland – Brief Interim Review of the Porosity and Durability Properties of the In Situ Cast Concrete at the Olkiluoto EPR Construction Reactor at Olkiluoto 3, Finland – Review of the Finnish Radiation Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) Assessment, R3123-A2, July 2005
- Reactor at Olkiluoto 3, Finland – Review of the Finnish Radiation Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) Assessment, R3123-A2, July 2005
- Status of Nuclear Power in Finland.