Finland’s much-delayed Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) nuclear reactor, Europe’s largest, began regular output early yesterday, its operator said, 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 came as Germany on Saturday switched off its last three remaining reactors, while Sweden, France, Britain and others plan new developments.
OL3’s operator Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO), which is owned by Finnish utility Fortum Oyj and a consortium of energy and industrial companies, has said the unit is expected to meet about 14 percent of Finland’s electricity demand, reducing the need for imports from Sweden and Norway.
Photo: AFP / TVO / Tapani Karjanlahti
The new reactor is expected to produce for at least 60 years, TVO said in a statement after completing the transition from testing to regular output.
“The production of Olkiluoto 3 stabilizes the price of electricity and plays an important role in the Finnish green transition,” TVO chief executive Jarmo Tanhua said in the statement.
Construction of the 1.6 gigawatt 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.
Russia’s power exports to Finland ended in May last year, 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 PJSC shortly after ended shipments of natural gas to the Nordic nation.
Separately, the German state of Bavaria wants to continue operating nuclear power plants under its own responsibility, state Premier Markus Soeder was quoted as saying, bringing a possible comeback for the power energy Germany finished phasing out on Saturday.
The state, home to many of Germany’s most successful exporting manufacturers, wants the federal government to change the nuclear exit law to allow operating such nuclear power stations under the state’s own responsibility, Soeder said.
“Until the crisis is over, and the transition to renewables succeeds, we must use every form of energy by the end of the decade,” the state government was quoted as saying by Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
“Bavaria is ready to take on this responsibility,” Soeder said, adding that Bavaria also wants to be a pioneer in nuclear fusion research and to construct of its own research reactor.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
RSS