Finland leaves the nuclear project because it is Russian. But so it remains linked to gas and oil
The Finnish nuclear energy development company Fennovoima has terminated the contract with the Russian state-owned company Rosatom. for the supply of a 1.2 GW Hanhikivi I nuclear power plant in Finland.
The Finnish group said cooperation with Rosatom's Finnish branch, RAOS Project, has been terminated "with immediate effect".
Fennovoima cited the increased risks and delays due to the ongoing war in Ukraine as reasons for canceling the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract. After all, with the blocking of Swift payments to Russia, any business activity becomes impossible, or almost impossible.
Initially signed in 2013, the termination of the EPC contract follows months of uncertainty over the planned Hanhikivi I plant in Pyhäjoki, Northern Finland.
Fennovoima CEO Joachim Specht said the resolution will have a significant impact on the company's employees, as well as impact the companies in the supply chain and the wider Pyhäjoki region.
Specht said: “Our primary goal is to support our employees by keeping them informed and by working closely with both our employees and employee representatives. Furthermore, we focus on the conservation of the site ”.
In response to Fennovoima's decision, Rosatom said the decision was made "without any detailed consultation" with the project's shareholders. The Russian company said in a statement: "The reasons behind this decision are completely inexplicable for us."
This is another blow to the possibility of collaboration between Europe and Russia even in a sector where this would have been very profitable, given the Russian experience in the nuclear sector. The consequences of this cancellation will be multiple:
- unemployment, because Fennovoima, even if it continues to build the site, will first have to find a new industrial partner;
- crisis for the Finnish nuclear sector, with numerous related companies that will close;
- energy dependence, because 1.2 GW will have to be produced anyway in some way, and presumably from fossil sources.
The decision to completely cut off relations with Moscow has a very high price, and not all countries are willing to pay for it. Finland obviously does.
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The article Finland leaves the nuclear project because it is Russian. But so it remains linked to gas and oil comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/la-finlandia-lascia-il-progetto-nucleare-perche-russo-pero-cosi-resta-legata-a-gas-e-petrolio/ on Wed, 04 May 2022 10:00:46 +0000.