9 July 2009
Europe: The rocky road to nuclear power
THE BRIGHT nuclear future envisaged for Europe could be a long journey away, judging by the difficulties experienced in the construction of Finland's European Pressurised-water Reactor (EPR), Olkiluoto 3 project. The power station – the first of the EPR design and the first nuclear facility to be ordered in Europe in recent history – is now more than three years behind schedule, its owner and supplier are seeking over €1.0bn ($1.4bn) of compensation from each other and the supplier partnership is breaking up. Teollisuuden Voima Oy (TVO), the private-sector company that owns two of Finland's existing four nuclear power stations, ordered the EPR at the end of 2003 and expected it to start gene
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