Finnish, French and British Greenpeace activists protested on Monday against "security breaches" at the building site of Finland's fifth nuclear reactor, the ecological pressure group said. Police removed a group of activists who were blocking the road to the site where the world's first third-generation European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) is being built.
According to Greenpeace spokesman Mikael Sjoevall, activists who earlier had climbed onto a tower crane were still atop it on Monday morning.
The operator of the plant Teollisuuden Voima Oy (TVO), a private electricity generation company owned by Finnish industrial and power companies, said work was not interrupted by the protests.
"The work continues as usual. One crane of 16 is out of operation for the time being," project director Martin Landtman said on the company website.
Greenpeace is highly critical of the increasing number of problems that have been reported from the building project and has held similar protests in the past.
The construction of the first nuclear fission pressurised water reactor (PWR) began in 2005 but has been repeatedly delayed due to a number of problems.
In early 2006 the concrete used in the construction did not pass quality control. There have also been problems with the plumbing and in autumn 2006 the site was hit by a storm that damaged the reactor's metal frame, delaying the project by two months.
"The protest is a direct reaction to the quality problems at the construction site, which has led to over 1,000 reported breaches of safety standards," Greenpeace said in a statement.
The Olkiluoto power plant in Finland will be the first EPR reactor built. It was initially scheduled to open in mid-2009 after four years of work but is now set be fully operational earliest in 2011.
The reactor is being built by the French-German EPR consortium Framatome ANP – Siemens.
According to Greenpeace, "TVO estimated in the application to the Finnish government that a 1600 MW reactor would cost 2.5 billion euros (3.4 billion dollars) and take four years to build. Now the costs are exceeding four billion euros and the project will take at least six years."
Electricite de France (EDF) is also building an EPR reactor in Flamanville in northern France. The reactor is to replace some of the 58 reactors currently in use, most of which have been in service since the 1980s.
Source: Agence France-Presse
