In 2002, politicians in Finland gave in to the construction of a new nuclear reactor largely because it was supposed to help us close down coal and peat fired power plants. Finland is the third highest emitter of greenhouse gases per-capita in the European Union, and one of the worst performers in terms of reducing emissions.

Greenpeace set out to find out whether Finnish energy companies were really going to use less fossil fuels because of their shiny new nuclear toy.. The outcome: Finland’s largest nuclear companies are busy planning and building new dirty power plants, meant to run for decades. The same companies that are busy arguing for new reactors, supposedly to cut emissions are simultaneously planning to keep up their dirty carbon habits.

The math does not look pretty: the two largest nuclear companies plan to build a total of nine large, predominantly fossil-fuel fired power plants. These power plants would spew out a total of four million tons of carbon dioxide yearly – that’s like every car in Finland driving 20 km more each day. This does not sound like a winning strategy to achieve the needed 40 % cut in greenhouse gas emissions in the next ten years.

It’s no accident that fossil fuel and nuclear power go hand in hand. Nuclear power is inflexible – and need fossil-fired plants to respond to variations of electricity demand. Nuclear companies need to keep energy consumption growing to keep their profits high.
Climate protection does not seem to fit in this equation, judging from our experiences in Finland.

I’m sure that nuclear companies will try to keep selling their nuclear waste production facilities as climate saviors. I hope it doesn’t mean the rest of us buy their arguments – or their nukes..

16 largest thermal power plant projects in Finland plotted on a map. Nuclear signs indicate projects run by one of the two main nuclear companies, Fortum and PVO.

(This a guest post by Lauri Myllyvirta, nuclear campaigner based in Finland for Greenpeace Nordic. You can find out more about Olkiluoto 3 at olkiluoto.info.)