Pekkarinen approved the Decision-in-Principle for the Fennovoima project two years ago. The consortium plans to begin preliminary work on Finland’s first entirely new nuclear power plant in decades later this year in Pyhäjoki, south of Raahe.
“Fennovoima must find a solution, either in cooperation with the nuclear-waste company Posiva or by building its own underground repository. If neither of these is possible, then it’s clear that Fennovoima will not build a reactor in Finland,” the veteran Centre Party official said on Yle’s A-studio current affairs programme on Wednesday evening.
Fennovoima has until 2016 to settle the issue.
Häkämies: Coercion could be used
Pekkarinen’s successor, Jyri Häkämies of the National Coalition Party, says that if need be the state could force Posiva to accept spent fuel rods from Fennovoima for storage in its Onkalo repository, now under construction in Eurajoki. Häkämies has appointed a panel to consider the dispute over the handling of radioactive waste.
Häkämies says the main question is whether Onkalo could be expanded. He says that its owners, TVO and Fortum, will not be forced to give up the space they are reserving for spent fuel from a potential third reactor that might be later added to the Loviisa power plant.
“This is not possible,” Häkämies says. “Fortum’s interests will not be infringed.”
Last year, Pekkarinen turned down an application by the partially state-owned Fortum to add another unit to its Loviisa facility on the south-eastern coast.