Finland relies on nuclear power

Finland relies on nuclear power


OThe snow has whitewashed the landscape ben, but down here, 437 meters below the surface of the earth, it is warm. It goes through a widely ramified tunnel system. Ventilation pipes on the ceiling, the walls brightly lit. At an intersection, Johanna Hansen gets out of the car and continues on foot, wading through a few puddles over rocky ground until she finally comes into a passage whose stone walls are not plastered. Highly radioactive nuclear waste is soon to be sunk into the ground here. Every ten meters a tube with old but still hot fuel rods in it. More than 30 pieces per tunnel. These are then filled with clay rock and sealed. Forever.

Julian Staib

Political correspondent for Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland based in Wiesbaden.

Her work serves to protect the environment, says 51-year-old geologist Hansen. If you produce energy, you also have to take care of the disposal of the waste. Hansen is responsible for research and development in the company operating the repository. On the wall behind her are lines and numbers on the rock face. This is used to create three-dimensional maps at the top of the computer to examine cracks in the rock and find the best place for the nuclear waste containers.

Approval is higher than ever

Since 2016, people have been digging and researching here deep in the ground on the Baltic Sea island of Olkiluoto. A total of around eight kilometers of tunnel have been completed, tests with “dummy fuel rods” are to be carried out from 2024 onwards, and the Onkalo repository is scheduled to go into operation in 2025. Then, at the top of the encapsulation facility, the fuel rods are welded into copper canisters and taken down in an elevator, where remote-controlled vehicles insert them into the holes in the rock. Finland will then be the first country in the world to have a repository for highly radioactive nuclear waste.

Johanna Hansen is responsible for research and development in the company operating the repository


Johanna Hansen is responsible for research and development in the company operating the repository
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Image: Julian Staib

The fuel rods from the two Finnish nuclear power plants Olkiluoto (located above the repository) and Loviisa (in the east of Helsinki) are to be stored. The operating company claims to have calculated the risks for thousands of years. Result: all harmless. When all the holes are full, the entire tunnel system will be filled with clay rock.

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