Nuclear Power in Finland - Planned Reactors

Planned Reactors

On 21 April 2010, the Government of Finland decided to grant permits for construction of the sixth and seventh commercial reactors to Teollisuuden Voima and Fennovoima, a subsidiary of E.ON. A fourth reactor would be built accordingly at Olkiluoto by TVO. The application by Fortum to build a new reactor at Loviisa was declined. The Finnish Parliament approved the building permits on 1 July 2010.

As in 2002, the Green League was principally opposed to nuclear power and represented in the coalition government, holding the positions of the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Labour. This time the party had publicly stated before the 2007 parliamentary elections that it would not leave a coalition it had agreed to join, even if the other parties in that coalition decided to license further reactors. The party viewed the 2002 decision to expand nuclear power with several new reactors as the principal one, and the 2010 decision as simply a question of which operators to grant the permits to. The Green League voted against all new permits in the cabinet, and lost the vote.

In October 2011, Fennovoima announced that it had chosen Pyhäjoki, in northern Finland, as the site for the country's third nuclear power plant. Construction is expected to start in 2015.