4 ms·

And only 13 years late! Original estimate for the start of electricity production was 2009. Full-scale commercial production is now on track to start in mid-20

And only 13 years late! Original estimate for the start of electricity production was 2009. Full-scale commercial production is now on track to start in mid-2022. This project has been absolutely harrowed by a seemingly infinite string of delays, and is now believed to be one of the world's most expensive construction projects ever undertaken: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Unit_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant#...

maeln 5y ago
> And only 13 years late! Not very surprising when you see that Areva/Framatome was involved :^) /s All jokes aside, having worked for a manufacturer of nuclear equipment, delay are usually the result of two factor: One is that the sales department of the companies involved are "very optimistic", and by that I mean, they ask engineer to do an estimation for the time/cost of designing/manufacturing one part, and then ask them to slash it by half (talking from experience, sadly, ...). They want to make sure that they get the contract so they make unrealistic proposition and then make sure that the contract is made so that they can still profit when the project will take twice the time and money. The second is the level of standard for this type of construction and equipment which is, thankfully, extremely high. A single small scratch could mean that you had to scrap and redo a lot of part of a thermal exchanger or tank. So, even the tiniest of manufacturing defect, or even slight damaged made when testing of moving the piece, can mean months of delay to redo and qualify the piece.
- doikor 5y ago
  Also the project taking this long caused further delays. For example Siemens finished their work on the turbines a long time ago but had to basically rebuild the whole damn thing because it just sat there for more than a decade. This is due to turbines being designed to spin constantly not sit still for years.
- masklinn 5y ago
  Here they also sold a novel design, Olki 3 ate most of the construction teething issues (though flamanville hit its fair share as well), Taishan seems to have gone better as they entered service in 2018 and 2019. Construction and operation teething issues are nothing surprising, but Areva was definitely… way over-optimistic about the EPR. I still can’t believe they advertised a 4 years plan when the first N4 (previous generation) took 12 years to build, and needed an additional 4 before it started operation. Hell, going down the list of reactors on the wiki, even the 900MWe class never went from first stone to operation in 4 years, the shortest looks to have been Blayais 1 which took a hair short of 5 (January 1st, 1977 to December 1st, 1981), and taking somewhere between 5 and 6 was much more typical for the 900MWe class. The P4s were a bit worse (7-9) and the N4s were way worse (the shortest time between build start and start of operation was Civaux 2 at 11 years, the Chooz reactors took 16).
Gatsky 5y ago
All those construction problems are pretty nerve wracking to read about. It seems that the major risks of these plants has shifted from operational hazards and design flaws to possible construction faults. > The waste heat, an output common to all thermal power plants, which heats the cooling water (at 13 °C) is utilized for small-scale agriculture before being pumped back to the sea. The power plant hosts the northernmost vineyard in the world, a 0.1 ha experimental plot that yields 850 kg Zilga grapes annually. Another use is a pond for growing crabs, whitefish and sturgeon for caviar. Hmmm not sure these paranuclear farm products will sell all that well…
- vesinisa 5y ago
  Sadly, these singular wines produced in Finland are not available for the mass market - they are for the nuclear power plant employees and partners only. Other than that, the water from the secondary cooling circuit that is used for the vineyard is perfectly safe. The secondary circuit cools the primary circuit, which has itself low activity, and there is really no way the radition could ever escape to the secondary circuit.
  - Gatsky 5y ago
    I agree the water is (obviously) perfectly safe, it was the popularity of the produce I was questioning.
    - vesinisa 5y ago
      Pretty sure the wines would be extremely popular, as it is the only of its kind (vineyard) in the whole country - even if some portion of the public would never drink a wine produced at a nuclear power station site. But according to the sources I was able to find, the process for getting all the food safety certifications for a commercial operation is just not the worth the effort at the small volumes they are able to produce.
      - eitland 5y ago
        On my list of things I'd like to buy just for fun. Nuclear certificates (like green certificates but proving my electricity comes from a nuclear power plant is also on that list), as is stuff from Lithuania these days.
Mvandenbergh 5y ago
They started building it before detailed design was done which is always the case with construction projects but they really misjudged how early they could start. As a result, whenever they had to stop to review an element of the construction plan or detailed design, they had to idle the entire trained workforce. Since you can't just hire nuclear trained welders etc off the street in Finland, these people were paid but doing nothing during that time. Contrast with China where this happened with their EPRs, they are building lots of other nuclear plants to they just put the labour force on buses and moved them to other projects for a few months. Obviously that makes a big difference.

maeln 5y ago

> And only 13 years late! Not very surprising when you see that Areva/Framatome was involved :^) /s All jokes aside, having worked for a manufacturer of nuclear equipment, delay are usually the result of two factor: One is that the sales department of the companies involved are "very optimistic", and by that I mean, they ask engineer to do an estimation for the time/cost of designing/manufacturing one part, and then ask them to slash it by half (talking from experience, sadly, ...). They want to make sure that they get the contract so they make unrealistic proposition and then make sure that the contract is made so that they can still profit when the project will take twice the time and money. The second is the level of standard for this type of construction and equipment which is, thankfully, extremely high. A single small scratch could mean that you had to scrap and redo a lot of part of a thermal exchanger or tank. So, even the tiniest of manufacturing defect, or even slight damaged made when testing of moving the piece, can mean months of delay to redo and qualify the piece.

doikor 5y ago
Also the project taking this long caused further delays. For example Siemens finished their work on the turbines a long time ago but had to basically rebuild the whole damn thing because it just sat there for more than a decade. This is due to turbines being designed to spin constantly not sit still for years.
masklinn 5y ago
Here they also sold a novel design, Olki 3 ate most of the construction teething issues (though flamanville hit its fair share as well), Taishan seems to have gone better as they entered service in 2018 and 2019. Construction and operation teething issues are nothing surprising, but Areva was definitely… way over-optimistic about the EPR. I still can’t believe they advertised a 4 years plan when the first N4 (previous generation) took 12 years to build, and needed an additional 4 before it started operation. Hell, going down the list of reactors on the wiki, even the 900MWe class never went from first stone to operation in 4 years, the shortest looks to have been Blayais 1 which took a hair short of 5 (January 1st, 1977 to December 1st, 1981), and taking somewhere between 5 and 6 was much more typical for the 900MWe class. The P4s were a bit worse (7-9) and the N4s were way worse (the shortest time between build start and start of operation was Civaux 2 at 11 years, the Chooz reactors took 16).

Gatsky 5y ago

All those construction problems are pretty nerve wracking to read about. It seems that the major risks of these plants has shifted from operational hazards and design flaws to possible construction faults. > The waste heat, an output common to all thermal power plants, which heats the cooling water (at 13 °C) is utilized for small-scale agriculture before being pumped back to the sea. The power plant hosts the northernmost vineyard in the world, a 0.1 ha experimental plot that yields 850 kg Zilga grapes annually. Another use is a pond for growing crabs, whitefish and sturgeon for caviar. Hmmm not sure these paranuclear farm products will sell all that well…

vesinisa 5y ago
Sadly, these singular wines produced in Finland are not available for the mass market - they are for the nuclear power plant employees and partners only. Other than that, the water from the secondary cooling circuit that is used for the vineyard is perfectly safe. The secondary circuit cools the primary circuit, which has itself low activity, and there is really no way the radition could ever escape to the secondary circuit.
- Gatsky 5y ago
  I agree the water is (obviously) perfectly safe, it was the popularity of the produce I was questioning.
  - vesinisa 5y ago
    Pretty sure the wines would be extremely popular, as it is the only of its kind (vineyard) in the whole country - even if some portion of the public would never drink a wine produced at a nuclear power station site. But according to the sources I was able to find, the process for getting all the food safety certifications for a commercial operation is just not the worth the effort at the small volumes they are able to produce.
    - eitland 5y ago
      On my list of things I'd like to buy just for fun. Nuclear certificates (like green certificates but proving my electricity comes from a nuclear power plant is also on that list), as is stuff from Lithuania these days.

Mvandenbergh 5y ago

They started building it before detailed design was done which is always the case with construction projects but they really misjudged how early they could start. As a result, whenever they had to stop to review an element of the construction plan or detailed design, they had to idle the entire trained workforce. Since you can't just hire nuclear trained welders etc off the street in Finland, these people were paid but doing nothing during that time. Contrast with China where this happened with their EPRs, they are building lots of other nuclear plants to they just put the labour force on buses and moved them to other projects for a few months. Obviously that makes a big difference.