Finland’s decisions on Pyhäjoki nuclear project put off until spring
Any decisions on Finland’s planned third nuclear power plant, to be built near Raahe, will be put off until next year. The government will not consider Fennovoima’s latest proposal for the site until next spring.
On Thursday, Minister of Economic Affairs Jan Vapaavuori met with the Parliamentary Finance Committee to discuss the latest twists in the long-running saga of the planned Fennovoima nuclear power station.
Vapaavuori said the cabinet will not decide on the next steps until after the completion of studies on the plant’s environmental impact and safety. They will take at least six months, he said.
“This is a very difficult judicial question. We don’t have legal precedents, and even the leading judicial experts in Finland seem have different views of the matter,” said Vapaavuori, a lawyer by training.
He was referring to the Fennovoima consortium’s recent decision to hire Russian state firm Rosatom to build a smaller, cheaper reactor than the one planned when it sought preliminary permission to launch the project. That shift followed abandonment of the venture by the major German power firm E.ON.
Vapaavuori declined to predict whether the project would be re-evaluated by Parliament. But he promised that the legislature would be provided with all the necessary information as to the development of the venture.
