Given how nuts our leaders are, this is probably America’s future too.
Posted on 04/15/2023 8:26:05 AM PDT by dennisw
HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finland's much-delayed Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) nuclear reactor, Europe's largest, will begin regular output on Sunday, its operator said on Saturday, boosting energy security in a region to which Russia has cut gas and power supplies.
Nuclear power remains controversial in Europe, primarily due to safety concerns, and news of OL3's start-up comes as Germany on Saturday switches off its last three remaining reactors, while Sweden, France, Britain and others plan new developments.
OL3's operator Teollisuuden Voima (TVO), which is owned by Finnish utility Fortum and a consortium of energy and industrial companies, has said the unit is expected to meet around 14% of Finland's electricity demand, reducing the need for imports from Sweden and Norway.
Construction of the 1.6 gigawatt (GW) reactor, Finland's first new nuclear plant in more than four decades and Europe's first in 16 years, began in 2005. The plant was originally due to open four years later, but was plagued by technical issues.
OL3 first supplied test production to Finland's national power grid in March last year and was expected at the time to begin regular output four months later, but instead suffered a string of breakdowns and outages that took months to fix.
As a result of the startup, analysts have said Finland, the only Nordic country with a large power deficit, can expect lower electricity costs.
Russia's power exports to Finland ended last May when Russian utility Inter RAO said it had not been paid for the energy it sold, a consequence of the widening gulf between Moscow and Europe over the war in Ukraine.
Russian state export monopoly Gazprom shortly after ended shipments of natural gas to the Nordic nation.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Good for Finland.
Given how nuts our leaders are, this is probably America’s future too.
Safety concerns….. there have been four, count them, 4, mishaps at nuclear power plants that we know of. Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima and one other I can’t remember. Or maybe it was only 3. Nuclear power is the most efficient for use of land area per unit of output. It also causes the fewest deaths per any measure when used to generate electricity. Nuclear waste is considered to be a problem for storage and disposal but most of it sits near the power plants because it is difficult to move when environmentalists are around. Probably the biggest impediment to nuclear energy as a power source is the environmentalist movement.
Too bad we can’t do this.
The reactor will produce 2.9 extra Gigawatts.
Oops! I meant 3.9 extra Gigawatts.
I will never figure out Germans.
They are Eco-nut cases. Hitler was an ecologist.
They seem intent on suicide.
Couple of world wars, green energy that doesn’t work,
pact with the devil for Russian natural gas, et al.
Must be the water.
A new source for radioactive waist storage that will last for eons. As the world turns more unstable it is only a matter of time before we have more great disasters.
“boosting energy security in a region to which Russia has cut gas and power supplies.”
The Neocons BLOWING UP THE PIPELINE also didn’t help much with gas supplies to Europe.
“...Germany on Saturday switches off its last three remaining reactors..”
The dumshits better not throw away the keys and users manual!
And what kind of reactor are we talking about here in Finland?
Never mind. I have the answer:
The Olkiluoto plant consists of two boiling water reactors (BWRs), each producing 890 MW of electricity, together comprising 22% of the country’s electricity ...
The idea of going without the comforts of modern civilization is more controversial, I guess.
The fourth one you’re at pains to remember might be SL-1, which resulted in three fatalities in January 1961.
But that was a miniature reactor fueled with weapons-grade uranium (HEU), which is similar to the fuel used to power nuclear submarines.
With that stuff, a small mistake can have catastrophic consequences that develop in microseconds.
Commercial nuclear power plants use fuel that isn’t anywhere close to being that reactive, at least not in Western countries.
“Too bad we can’t do this.”
Gates and Buffett are supposedly going to build one in Wyoming.
How’s that for perfect timing? The Finns start up a new nuke on the same day the Germans shut theirs down.
Lost River. And it was not an accident.
https://nypost.com/2021/10/16/was-worlds-first-fatal-nuclear-explosion-sparked-by-a-love-triangle/
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