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"Finland's fifth nuclear reactor preparing for installation of the reactor and turbine machinery Construction work on Olkiluoto III nuclear reactor to experience further major delays Construction work on Olkiluoto III nuclear reactor to experience further major delays Construction work on Olkiluoto III nuclear reactor to experience further major delays print this The construction of Finland's fifth commercial nuclear reactor, which is being built in Olkiluoto on the west coast of Finland, has been delayed once again. Even so, the French installation company Areva stands its ground, maintaining that the new reactor will generate electricity from the summer of 2012. "It does not look likely. The construction and the starting of installation on the reactor have progressed somewhat slower than scheduled", says Jouni Silvennoinen, a project manager at the Finnish nuclear power company Teollisuuden Voima (TVO)."

Had everything gone the way it was supposed to, then the suits, scissors, and silk ribbons should be being made ready for the inauguration of the third reactor at the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant on Finland's west coast. But the schedules did not hold up, and according to the current estimates the Olkiluoto III nuclear facility - Finland's fifth reactor - will be completed no earlier than the summer of 2012. In other words, the supposedly four-year stint looks to be lasting a minimum of seven years.

Greenpeace is calling for the construction permit for the Olkiluoto European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) in Finland - the world's largest prototype nuclear reactor - to be cancelled, following revelations of severe problems in the design of its electronic safety control systems. The call comes after a Finnish TV current affairs program broadcast details yesterday evening of a leaked letter from Finnish nuclear regulator STUK to Areva, the French constructor of the Olkiluoto 3 plant. The letter warns of a lack of 'real progress' in the 'design of control protection systems', which could lead to a halt in further construction work.1

As if it wasn't enough that three countries - including France - had raised concerns about safety in the new EPR nuclear reactor design, concerns are building over delays to another big European reactor. France remains a leader in world nuclear power, with almost 80 per cent of its electricity supply sourced from its reactors. The reactor under development by Electricite de France in Flamanville, northern France, and the Finnish Olkiluoto reactor are meant to be showcases for the new EPR reactor, largely designed by French company Areva. Delays over Olkiluoto have been well-publicised this year, and it's also been the subject of a public spat between Areva (which is building the plant) and Finnish utility TVO, which will operate it. Now the French project in Flamanville is coming under fire for delays, too. It is due to be commissioned in 2012, but sources close to the project told the FT the project is already six months behind, and that EDF is wrestling with Bouyges, the engineering company contracted to build the reactor, over budgets and round-the-clock shifts to advance the project.

As if it wasn't enough that three countries - including France - had raised concerns about safety in the new EPR nuclear reactor design, concerns are building over delays to another big European reactor. France remains a leader in world nuclear power, with almost 80 per cent of its electricity supply sourced from its reactors. The reactor under development by Electricite de France in Flamanville, northern France, and the Finnish Olkiluoto reactor are meant to be showcases for the new EPR reactor, largely designed by French company Areva. Delays over Olkiluoto have been well-publicised this year, and it's also been the subject of a public spat between Areva (which is building the plant) and Finnish utility TVO, which will operate it. Now the French project in Flamanville is coming under fire for delays, too. It is due to be commissioned in 2012, but sources close to the project told the FT the project is already six months behind, and that EDF is wrestling with Bouyges, the engineering company contracted to build the reactor, over budgets and round-the-clock shifts to advance the project.

Three times a day, thousands of workers from across Europe tramp through the snow and rocks here to a bulbous concrete hulk looming beneath an aerial ballet of construction cranes. TVO, the Finnish energy company building the new nuclear power plant at Olkiluoto Island, is two years behind schedule and may run more than $1 billion over budget on the reactor. It expects the plant's French and German construction firms to absorb the overruns, but they say the utility is to blame. The round-the-clock shifts are trying to resurrect nuclear power, an energy option that fell out of favor in 1986 when the Soviet Union's Chernobyl reactor exploded. The revival is not going well. The new Olkiluoto plant is struggling with cost overruns and delays. These are especially vexing in Finland's deregulated electricity market, where utilities can't just pass on the added costs without risking a flight of customers to other power suppliers. The plant is at least two years behind schedule.

A nuclear power plant under construction by the Franco-German Areva-Siemens consortium in Finland will be further delayed to mid-2012, utility TVO said on Tuesday. "The Areva-Siemens Consortium, the turn-key supplier of the Olkiluoto 3 nuclear power plant unit, has now confirmed TVO´s earlier estimation that the Olkiluoto 3 unit will not be completed until 2012," TVO said in a statement.

The Finnish Construction Union said Tuesday it had withdrawn a strike notice affecting the entire Olkiluoto nuclear power station site after a day of talks with Rimec, one of the subcontractors at the site. Kyösti Suokas, a chair of the union, said late on Tuesday that Rimec had convinced the union that the company had forwarded withheld wages to the state as tax and social security contributions. Representatives from Bouygues, the main contractor of the power station, also attended the talks. The strike had been scheduled to commence on Wednesday.

The OL3 European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) project, under construction at Olkiluoto, Finland, is seen by the nuclear industry as the blueprint for a new generation of reactors they'd like to see being built all over the world. Already well behind schedule and way over cost, serious problems were uncovered two days ago in the primary coolant pipes, only a week after documents leaked to Finnish media revealed that designs for the most vital and fundamental part of this untried and untested nuclear reactor - the safety systems - are still not yet in place.

The Finnish Nuclear and Radiation Safety Authority STUK says that the construction of the commercial nuclear reactor in Olkiluoto, which is to be the world's largest, has not proceeded according to official requirements. STUK has demanded that the builder of the installation, the French company Areva, correct faults with the automation that guides the reactor. YLE current affairs programme Ajankohtainen Kakkonen acquired a letter from STUK to Areva warning that the building site could be shut down if the automation is not fixed and approved. According to STUK, the design of the automation does not meet the basic principles required for nuclear safety, and on this basis STUK does not see any possibilities to approve the automation for installation at Olkiluoto.

Model for new UK reactors reveals damaging disagreements between Finland and French contractors From the outside, there is nothing unusual about the warehouse by the offices on Finland's Olkiluoto island, site of what should have been the world's first modern nuclear reactor. But inside, stacked on five kilometres of shelving, are 160,000 documents. "If a valve for the reactor is changed, it comes in a small box and a van full of documents," complains Jouni Silvennoinen, project director for Teollisuuden Voima (TVO), the Finnish utility that ordered the plant from the Franco-German consortium Areva-Siemens. The paper mountain helps explain why the reactor, which should have cost €3bn (£2.72bn) and been working this year, will now miss its revised completion date of mid-2012 and will cost at least €5.3bn. In the latest delay, Finland's nuclear safety regulator halted welding on the reactor last week and criticised poor oversight by the sub-contractor, supplier and TVO.

Model for new UK reactors reveals damaging disagreements between Finland and French contractors From the outside, there is nothing unusual about the warehouse by the offices on Finland's Olkiluoto island, site of what should have been the world's first modern nuclear reactor. But inside, stacked on five kilometres of shelving, are 160,000 documents. "If a valve for the reactor is changed, it comes in a small box and a van full of documents," complains Jouni Silvennoinen, project director for Teollisuuden Voima (TVO), the Finnish utility that ordered the plant from the Franco-German consortium Areva-Siemens. The paper mountain helps explain why the reactor, which should have cost €3bn (£2.72bn) and been working this year, will now miss its revised completion date of mid-2012 and will cost at least €5.3bn. In the latest delay, Finland's nuclear safety regulator halted welding on the reactor last week and criticised poor oversight by the sub-contractor, supplier and TVO.

"French nuclear giant AREVA were force to issue a profit warning yesterday. It has had to find an extra 400 million euros to cover the additional costs of building its so-called flagship European Pressurised Reactor at Olkiluoto in Finland. This is on top of 2.3 billion euro provisions put aside in previous years and brings the current estimated overrun to an eye-watering 2.7 billion euros. The initial cost of the project was 3.2 billion euros. While the rocketing costs of the OL3 EPR have dragged down AREVA's results for years, this is the first time that they have sent the company into the red. The company's financial health has already been suffering thanks to the Olkiluoto project, as it struggles to build up its reserves for planned future investments. But that's not the end of it. This announcement of another enormous cost overrun will not be the last. This newly announced 400 million is based on the assumption that OL3 will be operational by end of 2012 and not the middle of 2012. However, it became clear last week that the end of 2012 milestone will - at best - be completion date for construction. It will then take at least another six months before the newly finished power plant can go into commercial operation. That would mean roughly another extra 400 million euros being added to the project's budget."

Areva, the French nuclear plant designer expected to be at the forefront of a British atomic power revival, has become embroiled in a war of words with a Finnish utility over delays at the site of Europe's first new nuclear station for 30 years. The latest setback will worry ministers in London who are trying to convince sceptics that nuclear can deliver quickly and efficiently to meet the looming energy "crunch" after 2015. Jarmo Tanhua, chief executive of Teollisuuden Voima Oy (TVO), the Finnish electricity provider, said he was "extremely disappointed" that Areva had told it that the Olkiluoto 3 facility was not going to be completed until 2012 - three years later than originally expected.

New problems have been found at the construction site of the Olkiluoto-3 nuclear power facility. According to a release by the environmental group Greenpeace, the problem concerns welds in the steel liner of the inner shell of the reactor building which have been carried out contrary to orders. Lasse Reima, the director of Nuclear Reactor Regulation at the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority STUK has confirmed the problem.

Welding report adequate, but ministry wants international comparisons on monitoring 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.

Finland's employment and economy ministry said in a statement Thursday it had requested the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) to produce a supplementary report on the groundrules of the oversight of the Olkiluoto nuclear power station building site.

Finland's Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) said in a statement it had handed a supplementary report on its oversight procedures to the government and added it would carry out a "special inspection" of the Olkiluoto nuclear power station building site. The employment and economy ministry had on Thursday requested a supplementary report following two written questions in Parliament calling STUK's international credibility into question.

The environmental organisation Greenpeace is accusing Boyygues, the company which is building the reactor building of the new nuclear facility in Olkiluoto, of serious security breaches in welding work. The reactor that is being built in the west coast community of Olkiluoto is the third to be built on the site, and the fifth in all of Finland.

Finland's Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) said Tuesday it had ordered a halt on welding at the Olkiluoto nuclear power station building site. The watchdog added that French nuclear power group Areva, the supplier of the power station, had discovered small cracks on pipes forming part of the station's primary cooling circuit.

This is the radioactivity-free kind of meltdown, as Helsingin Sanomat reported: The Finnish nuclear power company Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) is seeking damages of EUR 2,400 million from the consortium of Areva and Siemens for delays in the construction of Finland's fifth nuclear reactor in Olkiluoto. Makes one look forward to what might happen if a truly litigous country had a major nuclear Renaissance fueled by, say, taxpayer money (see The nuclear bomb in the Senate stimulus plan). The Finnish newspaper has

Billions of euros are involved in the arbitration between TVO and the Areva-Siemens consortium. TVO considers itself entitled to €2.4 billion in damages, while the consortium wants €1 billion for compensation and late payments. The official mention of the figures by Siemens as part of its first-quarter results for 2009 confirms reports that big money would be involved in the dispute. Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) contracted the Areva-Siemens consortium to construct a 1600 MWe EPR reactor at Olkiluoto at the end of 2003. For €3 billion ($3.9 billion), the consortium was meant to complete the plant and hand it over to TVO this year. However, mid-2012 is now seen as the likely start-up date and neither party is happy. Areva has said that TVO is much too slow in processing documents and passing them on to the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, Stuk, while TVO denies this.