Environmental Impact Assessment on new reactor in Finland

Due to Rosatom taking over e.on's shares in Fennovoima, and thus owning the biggest share of this "Finnish" company, politicians and authorities in Finland required the company to do a new Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the proposed new reactor in Pyhäjoki. The significant changes in the ownership of Fennovoima as well as the massively changed size of the reactor and the different model to be used make it necessary to submit a completely new application, says the responsible Ministry of Employment and Economy, while the Ministries of Environment and of Foreign Affairs agree with this stance.

On February 13th, 2014 the Finnish Ministry of Employment and Economy announced the Fennovoima environmental report is finished and ready to be published for public evaluation and comments. This 264 page report was prepared by Pöyry company, which has been previously criticized for breaking the European rules of corporate social responsibility. The Ministry is the body responsible one for the EIA process, international EIA (according to the Espoo Convention) is handled through the Ministry of Environment.

So far, there seems to be several additions to the EIA programme, suggested by Swedish organizations. The most important seems to be adding the INES-7 scenario to the EIA. Another one is the effect of pack ice which is said to be included, but it's actually a description of the pack ice itself, no analysis on the reactor behaviour if pack ice prevents cooling etc.