December 19, 2003	Friday	Shawwal 24, 1424

HELSINKI: By the end of 2003, Finland will finalize details for an investment that will break ground in more ways than one.

Private power generation firm Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) plans by that time to pick the main contractor to build the country’s fifth nuclear reactor. TVO says a bid from France’s Framatome and Germany’s Siemens currently has the inside track.

TVO expects the 3.2-billion-euro ($3.95 billion) project at existing nuclear facilities in the west coast town of Olkiluoto to provide more than 3,000 construction jobs during four years and help create at least as many in the services sector.

“The gross domestic product (GDP) of Finland should be some 1.5 per cent higher in 2010 than without the nuclear plant, mainly from the investment impact,” said Hannu Kaseva, an economist with Finnish think-tank ETLA.

The investment, to be largely funded through debt, will be the largest of its kind in Finland. It comes at a time when the country’s centre-left government is trying to maintain the welfare state while also cutting taxes to keep big firms, like top global phone maker Nokia, from moving abroad.

The 1,600-megawatt pressurized water reactor, due to come online in 2009, will also help offset volatile energy prices in a region dependent on climate-sensitive hydropower, TVO says.

And it will help Finland cap greenhouse gases produced by fossil fuels as stipulated under the Kyoto deal.

“When we filed the application last time to the state in 1993, we did not have the Kyoto protocol,” said TVO official Anneli Nikula. “If we want to keep the Kyoto target...nuclear power is the best option.”

But the decision stands in stark contrast to a Western Europe moving away from nuclear power, with no new plants built in the last decade and the memories of Ukraine’s 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster never lurking too far below the surface.

AGAINST THE GRAIN: Germany, Belgium and neighbouring Sweden have announced a withdrawal from atomic energy, with Britain and France lukewarm on the idea but keeping their options open on how to replace their aging reactors.

Environmentalists say Finland should focus on renewable energy resources, with the decision downplaying safety issues and sending the wrong message abroad. The project also doesn’t take account of the recent surge in global terror, they add.

“It can be a strong and dangerous signal to other countries that this is a good way of solving climate issues while it in fact is solving one environmental problem with another,” said campaigner Kaisa Kosonen from Greenpeace.

Eight Greenpeace activists were arrested this month after they slipped into TVO’s head office and handcuffed themselves to furniture. Others climbed the building to hang banners from the roof calling to “stop the nuclear madness”.

“Finns are like the guinea pigs,” Kosonen said, referring to Framatome’s European Pressurized Water Reactor (EPR) which is slated to be used. EPR was once planned as a replacement for aging reactors in France and Germany but has not been built anywhere.

But Finnish nuclear safety authority STUK, which has the right to reject the application in its review next year, says all the competing reactor designs could fulfil its requirements with some adjustments.

And the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on the United States are being taken into account.—Reuters