Standard & Poor’slowers the credit rating of the Finnish firm Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO)
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Credit ratings agencies downgrade nuclear power company TVO, YLE, 24 May 16
One of the big three credit ratings agencies operating on the world stage, Standard & Poor’s, has lowered the credit rating of the Finnish firm Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) from BBB-/A-3 to BB+/B.
The nuclear power company is owned by a consortium of power and industrial companies in Finland, the largest shareholders being the energy firms Pohjolan Voima and Fortum…….
Construction of a third TVO plant unit, Olkiluoto 3, has been plagued with problems from the start and is now seven years behind schedule. TVO has several pending disputes with the unit’s suppliers. In 2012, TVO submitted a claim and defence to the International Chamber of Commerce for damages due to delays……
In July 2010 the Finnish Parliament ratified a decision-in-principle from the government concerning TVO’s application to construct a fourth plant unit, Olkiluoto 4. In September 2014, the government however rejected TVO’s application to have the validity of the decision-in-principle extended. http://yle.fi/uutiset/credit_ratings_agencies_downgrade_nuclear_power_company_tvo/8902267
Police clear Finland’s anti-nuclear plant protest camp
30 Apr 16, Police have cleared protesters from the site of a proposed nuclear power plant at Pyhäjoki on the north-west coast after demonstrations took a violent turn on Thursday….http://yle.fi/uutiset/police_clear_anti-nuclear_plant_protest_camp/8849910
Finnish-Russian nuclear site broken into by protestors

Apr 26, 2016 Protesters break into Finnish-Russian nuclear site, Reuters, Anti-nuclear protesters broke in to a construction site on Tuesday for a nuclear reactor to be supplied by Russia’s state-owned nuclear firm Rosatom, choosing the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster for their demonstration…….
The Chernobyl disaster increased radiation levels in Finland, putting nuclear Finnish plant projects on ice for a decade.
This latest project has raised concerns and resistance from many Finns as the plant is set to forge deeper energy ties between EU state Finland and its former ruler Russia despite East-West tensions over the Ukraine crisis.
Rosatom has a 34 percent stake in the 7 billion euro ($7.9 billion) project. It will supply the reactor and also handle the project’s financing.
Fennovoima struggled to find local investors to fulfill an ownership condition set by the Finnish government, but utility Fortum last year signed up in a surprise move, prompting questions of political pressure from both countries involved…….http://www.reuters.com/article/us-finland-fennovoima-protests-idUSKCN0XN1TH
Operating licence for Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor applied for by TVO
Finland’s TVO applies for delayed Olkiluoto nuclear plant licence http://uk.reuters.com/article/finland-nuclearpower-idUKL5N17H192 Apr 14, 2016
Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) has applied for an operating licence for its much-delayed Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor, saying it is on track to start production in late 2018.
“This is a significant milestone. The project is moving from installations to tests,” project manager Jouni Silvennoinen said in a statement on Thursday.
It was originally due to start operation in 2009, and TVO has traded blame for the delay with the plant’s supplier
consortium Areva-Siemens , with both demanding billions of euros from each other in an ongoing arbitration at the International Chamber of Commerce. (Reporting by Jussi Rosendahl; Editing by Alexander Smith)
Fennovoima not permitted to store its radioactive trash at Onkalo disposal site

Fennovoima still looking for final nuclear waste disposal site http://yle.fi/uutiset/fennovoima_still_looking_for_final_nuclear_waste_disposal_site/8795028. 7 Apr 16
The nuclear waste management company Posiva has remained steadfast in its refusal to allow waste from the planned Fennovoima nuclear power plant to be stored in its Onkalo disposal site in south-western Finland. The company had indicated that it would not accommodate Fennovoima’s nuclear waste even before the Pyhäjoki project got off the ground.
Nuclear waste management company Posiva said that it has not changed its mind about allowing spent fuel from the Fennovoima nuclear power plant in Pyhäjoki to be stored in its Onkalo waste facility being built further south on the west coast.
Posiva has said that the subterranean cave is reserved for use only by joint owners Teollisuuden Voima, TVO, which operates a series of reactors at the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant in Eurajoki, western Finland, and energy giant Fortum, which operates its own nuclear power facilities in Loviisa, southern Finland. The latter also has a six-percent stake in the controversial Fennovoima project.
Posiva chief executive Janne Mokka said that the spent nuclear fuel depository and its surrounding areas have been reserved only for waste generated by TVO and Fortum.
Fennovoima has expressed the hope that possible waste from its Pyhäjoki nuclear facility could be accommodated in the Posiva cave.
However Posiva CEO Mokka said that the firm had so far mainly discussed how it could pass on the expertise earned from the Posiva deep geological depository to the Pyhäjoki project.
Disposal plan to be filed with ministry officials
Posiva began working on the depository in 2004, but only received a final green light for the project in November last year. It is to begin operations sometime in the early 2020s.
Fennovoima is currently planning a final waste disposal plan that is due to be lodged with the Ministry of Employment and the Economy in a few months.
However if the company cannot reach an agreement with Posiva, it will have to present ministry officials with an environmental impact assessment as part of alternative disposal plan.
Steadfast refusal from Posiva
Fennovoima has remained tight-lipped about possible cooperation with Posiva, but would only say that the matter is being discussed. A Fennovoima spokesperson said that the company is currently preparing a report into a waste disposal facility with the help of internal consultants.
Back in 2012, Posiva had already indicated that it would not accept waste from any other nuclear facility apart from that produced by its owners, TVO and Fortum. The Eurajoki subterranean disposal site is the world’s first permanent deep storage facility.
Spent fuel from the Fortum and TVO plants will have to be stored for 40-60 years before it cools enough to be stored underground. As the oldest Finnish reactors have been in operation since the late 1970s, some of their waste will soon be old enough for encapsulation.
40-year, €3.3bn project
The facility, which has been planned since 1983, is intended to keep the waste safe for some 100,000 years. The companies have estimated the price tag for the entire project at 3.3 billion euros.
Posiva’s initial refusal to host the waste from the Fennovoima project came just as Finland’s Supreme Administrative Court overturned appeals to block the project’s progress.
The motions were filed by one private individual and a number of environmental protection organisations seeking to block construction at two sites under consideration, one at Simo and the other at Pyhäjoki, both in the northwest.
The project has otherwise been beset by setbacks and controversy, but infrastructure work began in September last year.
Under Finnish law, all waste from nuclear facilities must be permanently stored in Finland.
Russia funding and building new nuclear power station in Finland

The power plant is expected to start generating electric power in 2024.
In December 2013, Rusatom Overseas [Rosatom’s subsidiary – TASS] and Finnish Fennovoima signed the contract for construction of Hanhikivi-1 nuclear power plant. Along with the construction contract, a ten-year fuel contract was signed with Russia’s company TVEL.
Russia’s revenues from the Hanhikivi-1 nuclear power plant project will amount to €17.5 bln , head of Rosatom Sergey Kiriyenko said earlier. Of this amount only taxes to the federal budget will exceed €3 bln, he added.
According to Finnish media, the project’s cost will reach €6-7 bln, of which €1.6 bln will be invested by Fennovoima and the rest by Rosatom. The commissioning of the new nuclear power plant is scheduled for 2024.
Rusatom Overseas is to supply 1,200Mt reactor for Hakhikivi-1.
Exceptionally high level of radioactive caesium-137 in Helsinki.

Nuclear reactor Legal struggle continues between AREVA and Finland’s TVO
Areva, TVO have month to settle nuclear reactor claims-minister http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL8N154366 PARIS Jan 20 (Reuters) French nuclear reactor maker Areva and Finnish customer Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) will try to settle mutual claims over a long-delayed nuclear reactor within a month, French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday.“I had the chance at the start of the week to speak to (Finnish Economy Minister) Olli Rehn, and we gave ourselves a month to let the companies and shareholders find the conditions for an agreement or way out,” Macron said on the sidelines of a New Year event.
Finnish utility TVO and an Areva-led consortium with Siemens are claiming billions of euros from one another in an arbitration suit over cost overruns and delays to the EPR reactor Areva is building in Olkiluoto, in Finland, for TVO.
The unsettled claims are holding up a planned takeover of Areva’s reactor arm by French utility EDF, which does not want to be responsible for them.
TVO has a 2.6 billion euro ($2.8 billion) claim against the Areva-Siemens consortium at the International Chamber of Commerce’s (ICC) arbitration court, while Areva-Siemens have a 3.4 billion euro counter-claim.
While the French state – which owns 85 percent of EDF and 87 percent of Areva – has a big stake in a speedy resolution of the Olkiluoto claims, TVO is a private company and the Finnish government’s position so far has been not to intervene.
TVO’s owners include paper companies UPM and Stora Enso as well as utility Fortum. (Reporting by Michel Rose and Yann Le Guernigou; Writing by Geert De Clercq; Editing by James Regan and Susan Thomas)
Paris COP21 anti-nuclear activists arrested after daring climb on Arche de la Defense
Anti-nuclear climbers defy Paris protest ban, four arrested http://www.nukeresister.org/2015/12/04/anti-nuclear-climbers-defy-paris-protest-ban-four-arrested/ Four anti-nuclear activists defied the state of emergency ban on public protest in Paris on Wednesday, December 2, climbing up the steel cables beneath the modern Arche de la Defense to hang banners. French environmentalists joined German climbers from the action group in the ascent as the COP 21 climate talks were underway. They first deployed small banners reading “Don’t Nuke the Climate – Stop EPR” (referring to the latest French reactor design). Police were quickly on the scene, including 20 from a specially equipped mountain brigade in town for the event. They pursued the climbers up the cables and prevented a larger banner from unrolling which would have proclaimed “System Change, Not Climate Change!”
The four were taken into custody and charged with disrupting public order and violating the state of emergency before their release some hours later. The action was part of international “Climate Games”, a call to direct action against institutions responsible for climate change.
Their statement said:
“States gathered at the COP 21 are powerless to prevent climate catastrophe. Their interests are too intertwined with those of multinationals. For the political change needed to happen, it is for the people to put pressure on governments and companies responsible for climate change.
“Given the climate problem, a capitalist economic system based on growth can only give us false solutions: geo-engineering, carbon markets and of course nuclear. It does not get us out of the impasse. It feeds unbridled energy consumption… ‘System change’ is to refuse the colonial wars of appropriation of resources and ecosystem changes that cause desperate migration, exacerbate ethnic and religious tensions, and contribute to the nihilistic radicalization of a minority. Faced with the threat of terrorism and the draconian response of the State, it is all the more urgent to carry this message to the heart of French economic power.”
Climber Cécile Lecomte wrote:
“In the international climate debate, uncontrolled economic growth is not discussed as a key driver of climate change. Nuclear power is totally unsuitable as a remedy to destructive economic growth. Instead of focusing on risky technologies, in particular the industrialized countries are invited to take a change of system – towards a democratic, social and ecological economy that is aligned to the needs of all people. Less is more!”
For more information, visit http://blog.eichhoernchen.fr/post/Action-escalade-pour-le-climat-Arche-de-la-Defense-malgré-etat-d-urgence
Deep nuclear waste burial plan approved by Finland’s government
Deep Storage Plans Approved. IEEE Spectrum By Lucas Laursen 17 Nov 2015 Finland’s government issued a construction license to nuclear disposal consortium Posiva last week, Reuters reported. The license gives the group approval to build a storage facility on Olkiluoto Island, Finland, designed to last 100,000 years.
Nuclear waste consists of metal rods composed mostly of uranium with a molecular weight of 238. Over time, the depleted uranium atoms release radioactive particles—a process called decay—that converts the uranium into lighter elements. Over billions of years, those atoms decay, too. By the end, all that is left is lead.
In the (long) meantime, however, the radioactive material can contaminate its surroundings, and therefore requires costly management. The United States and other nuclear-powered countries have thus far proven unable to agree on where to store their half-century’s worth of accumulated nuclear waste. An earthquake, volcanic activity, or even a slow leak of water could disrupt the temporary facilities in which the waste now sits.
To provide safer and more permanent storage, Posiva proposes to bury electrically-welded iron-and-copper capsules 400 meters underground. The capsules would be surrounded by clay barriers and capped with rubble and cement. The facility, which would have a 6,500 metric ton capacity, could likely hold Finland and Sweden’s projected future nuclear waste. But that capacity doesn’t come close to the volume required by larger nations such as the United States, which has over 70,000 metric tons of waste piled up, and produces an additional 2,200 tons a year.
Though tunneling has been going on for over a decade, Posiva had to wait for the Finnish government to approve its 2012 construction permit application before it could begin the trickier task of loading radioactive waste into its metal coffins. That task may begin as soon as 2023, continue for up to a century, and end when operators fill in the access tunnels with rubble and cap them off with cement. Posiva estimates that installation and operating costs for the first century will be around €3 billion (US $3.21 billion). http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/nuclear/nuclear-waste-deep-storage-plans-approved
Finland’s nuclear waste burial plan
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Finland’s Nuclear Waste Solution. IEEE Spectrum, By Sandra Upson 30 Nov 2009 Here on Olkiluoto Island, the forest is king. Elk and deer graze near sun-dappled rivers and shimmering streams, and humans search out blueberries and chanterelle mushrooms. Weathered red farmhouses sit along sleepy dirt roads in fields abutting the woods. Far beneath the vivid green forest, deep in the bedrock, workers are digging the labyrinthine passages and chambers that they hope to someday pack with all of Finland’s spent nuclear fuel.
Posiva, the Finnish company building an underground repository here, says it knows how to imprison nuclear waste for 100 000 years. These multimillennial thinkers are confident that copper canisters of Scandinavian design, tucked into that bedrock, will isolate the waste in an underground cavern impervious to whatever the future brings: sinking permafrost, rising water, earthquakes, copper-eating microbes, or oblivious land developers in the year 25 000. If the Finnish government agrees—a decision is expected by 2012—this site will become the world’s first deep, permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel.
Of course, not everyone shares Posiva’s confidence. ”It’s deep hubris to think you can contain it,” says Charles McCombie, executive director of the Association for Regional and International Underground Storage, based in Switzerland.
There’s more at stake here than the interment of 5500 metric tons of spent Finnish fuel. More than 50 years after the first commercial nuclear power plants went operational in the United Kingdom and the United States, the world’s 270 000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel remain in limbo. After it gets swapped out of a reactor, utilities put it in specially designed pools, where chilled, circulating water absorbs the initial heat and radioactivity. After about five or six years, the fuel has cooled considerably, enabling utilities with limited pool space to load it into huge, million-dollar steel casks that are left to sit on concrete pads within guarded compounds.
The arrangement is far from ideal. Continue reading
Finland’s underground nuclear waste storage plan approved
It approved Posiva Oy’s plan to construct a spent nuclear fuel encapsulation plant and disposal facility at the island of Olkiluoto, western Finland. Local people have accepted the plan.
Up to 6,500 tonnes of uranium may be deposited in the facility, some 450 meters (490 yards) below the surface in the granite bedrock. It is estimated to become operational from around 2023.
Sweden has similar plans, but Posiva said it is a few years behind Finland. “This is a huge step for us. We’ve done research and development work for this for more than 40 years,” said CEO Janne Mokka.
The world has 270,000 tonnes of used fuel stockpiled, much of it under water in ponds at nuclear power stations, adding to the urgency of finding a permanent storage solution for material that can remain toxic for hundreds of thousands of years.
In Posiva’s disposal process, the waste will be packed in copper canisters and transferred into tunnels and further into deposition holes lined with bentonite buffer. Construction is expected to cost just under a billion euros, and the total cost estimate, including operational costs for 100 years, is 3.5 billion euros ($3.8 billion).
Before the repository can go operational, Posiva must yet again analyze its environmental impacts, including the ability to retrieve the nuclear waste if necessary as well as the transport risks……..http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/12/us-finland-nuclear-idUSKCN0T121120151112#iT2IC6O0Eo49wfxQ.97
A warning to UK – the disastrous history of Finland’s Olkiluoto nuclear station
“what’s most striking at the experience of Olkiluoto — just how many different things have gone wrong.”
New nuclear: Finland’s cautionary tale for the UK ,Carbon Brief, 20 Oct 15,Finland has a 15-year-old problem called Olkiluoto 3. This nuclear plant was once the bright star of Finland’s energy future and Europe’s nuclear renaissance.
It was seen as a key component in Finland’s plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissionsby 80% by 2050 and end reliance on foreign imports of electricity, even during its long, dark Arctic winters. It is supposed to provide Finland with a low-carbon source of electricity for at least 60 years.
A 2006 article in the Telegraph spoke of the rebirth of Finnish love for nuclear power, describing the Olkiluoto site in phrases that could have been lifted from a pastoral poem: a “Baltic island of foraging swans”, “pine-scented” air and “unusually large salmon”.
But this source of hope has turned sour. Olkiluoto 3 — almost unpronounceable to non-Finns — is now nine years behind schedule and three times over budget. It has been subject to lawsuits, technology failure, construction errors and miscommunication. A rift between the companies behind the plant has been describedas “one of the biggest conflicts in the history of the construction sector”.
At best, it has been a turbulent lift-off to the lauded rebirth of nuclear power in western Europe. For the UK, which hopes to be a part of this renaissance, the story of Olkiluoto 3 offers a cautionary tale.
Background
The story of Olkiluoto 3 began in 2000…….
Construction problems
It is now 2015, and Finland still does not have its new nuclear plant.
The companies behind the project are at loggerheads. TVO is seeking compensation from Areva in court, the company responsible for supplying the reactor and turbine, and Areva is pursuing a counterclaim.
Herkko Plit, the deputy director of Finland’s energy department, tells Carbon Brief:
“I don’t think there’s anybody who can say they are pleased with the project.”……….
The case is being dealt with in the International Chamber of Commerce‘s arbitration court.
Nonetheless, Areva has been forced to accept losses. The company, which hasn’t turned a profit since 2010, recorded net losses of €4.8bn in 2014, largely due to Olkiluoto. It has agreed to sell a majority stake in its nuclear reactor business to EDF.
If the lawsuit turns against TVO, it could be Finland’s industry that feels the pain. The utilities company is owned by shareholders that buy the right to use the electricity produced by the power station……..
what’s most striking at the experience of Olkiluoto — just how many different things have gone wrong.” http://www.carbonbrief.org/new-nuclear-finlands-cautionary-tale-for-the-uk/
Fennovoima the last hurrah for nuclear industry in Finland
Regional daily: PM Sipilä says Fennovoima could be Finland’s last nuclear project http://yle.fi/uutiset/regional_daily
Prime Minister Juha Sipilä says it’s unlikely that his government will approve any new nuclear power plants after the Fennovoima project, reports the regional daily Keskisuomalainen. In an interview with Keskisuomalainen, Prime Minister Juha Sipilä stated that the Fennovoima project could be Finland’s last nuclear power plant. However Sipilä stressed that no firm decisions had been made on the issue.
Sipilä said that it seemed unlikely that any new proposals for nuclear power plants would come up for consideration during the current government’s term in office.
Sipilä added that during government formation talks he had conducted a straw poll among prospective coalition partners. It was on this basis that he said it was “very unlikely that anything further would happen on this front.”
“There are no applications or any discussions ongoing about nuclear power permits,” Sipilä remarked.
Sipilä’s government programme has made no mention of nuclear power; rather, it has highlighted the possibilities of the bio-energy sector……..http://yle.fi/uutiset/regional_daily_pm_sipila_says_fennovoima_could_be_finlands_last_nuclear_project/8206696
Migrit rejected for nuclear investment in Finland – “a front for Russian capital”.
Finnish officials reject nuclear plant investor Ft.com By David Crouch in Gothenburg, July 16, 2015 Finland’s plan to build a nuclear power station with help from Russia has been thrown into doubt after officials in Helsinki rejected a mysterious investor that it is alleged has links with Moscow.
The move raises a fresh obstacle to the project, which has been dogged by accusations that Finland is placing Russian interests before EU foreign policy objectives.
Finland’s economics ministry said on Thursday that the ownership of Migrit Solarna Energija, a Croatian group listed as owning almost 9 per cent of the Fennovoima project, could not be “adequately verified”.
The ministry said it could not establish with certainty that the company was “factually controlled” from inside western Europe.
Finland’s government has insisted that 60 per cent of the €6bn–€7bn cost of the nuclear plant should be borne by companies residing or domiciled in the EU or the wider European Free Trade Association, which includes Norway, Iceland and Switzerland.
However, without Migrit, this requirement will not be met — which means either a new investor or additional investment from existing shareholders.
“We cannot speculate on who Migrit is controlled by,” said Herkko Plit, a senior civil servant in the economics ministry. “It has many relations to foreign countries, not just Russia. But . . . those people who founded it originally were Russians. The current owners are also Russian citizens to the best of our knowledge.”
Fennovoima plans to begin construction of a 1,200-megawatt reactor at Pyhaejoki in northern Finland in 2018, with operation due to begin in 2024.
But the company has struggled to find backers after the main original shareholder, the German utility Eon which had a 34 per cent stake, withdrew in 2012 after energy prices fell. Rosatom, the Russian state-owned nuclear company that will build the plant, now owns a 34 per cent stake.
Olli Rehn, a former European commissioner who in April became economics minister in Finland’s rightwing coalition government, said a decision on the future of the Fennovoima project would be referred to a meeting of the government on August 6.
“It seems that behind the Croatian company are Russian financiers,” Mr Rehn told YLE, the Finnish broadcaster, although he declined to say whether he believed that Migrit was linked to Rosatom………..
anti-nuclear campaigners said the new doubts about the project should be enough to kill it off. “It should be a sign to the government — if they cannot find investors the plant is not viable,” said Sini Harkki, Greenpeace programme manager for Finland.
She said it appeared that Migrit was “a front for Russian capital”.
“Fennovoima has had several years to find investors, and all it has found was this small Croatian company,” she added. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/601da0a4-2bda-11e5-acfb-cbd2e1c81cca.html#axzz3g6DMCh5d
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