Coordinating authority’s statement Processing in the EIA report Several statements and opinions discussed placement of the res-
idences in the area. In the Ministry’s opinion, the EIA report must include an illustrative description of the location of residential areas in the vicinity of the power plant and a description of the protective zone and its impact on the local residents. A general description of evacuation measures, if any, must also be added.
Furthermore, a description of the land acquisition procedures for specific land areas and any unfinished land use planning issues must be added.
Locations of the residential areas in the immediate vicinity of the project site are described in Section 7.10.1. Information about the protective zones, their impact on the residents, and potential evacuation measures is available in Sections 4.5.3 and 7.13.
A description of the land acquisition procedure is given in Section 1.5. Section 7.2 includes a brief description of the land use planning required by the project.
The EIA program includes a brief description of the zero-option, stating that the increased electricity demand in Finland would have to be covered by increasing import or by other parties implementing separate power plant projects.
However, several of the statements propose that the opportunity to save energy, the opportunity to more effectively utilize energy, and other available electricity production methods should be studied. The Ministry notes that the organization responsible for the project is a company that generates power only for its shareholders. Thus, it does not have access to any noteworthy means of saving energy or utilizing it more effectively. The Ministry recommends that the EIA report should briefly describe the ener- gy-saving measures of the applicant’s owners and the measures implemented to utilize energy more efficiently.
Energy-efficiency of the planned Fennovoima nuclear power plant is described in Section 3.4.2.
The energy-saving measures implemented by Fennovoima’s shareholders are described in the EIA of 2008. There is a brief reference to these in Section 7.18.4.
Impacts and assessing them
The EIA program states that the impacts of cooling water, waste- water, and intake of water on water quality, biology, the fish stock (migratory fish species and fishery, in particular), and other flora and fauna will be assessed. The legislation on marine protection that was revised based on the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (2000/56/EC) must be taken into account.
Impacts of the project on flora and fauna and protected species on land areas must be described to a sufficient extent.
The impacts on water systems and fishery are described in Section 7.4.
The revised marine protection legislation has been taken into account in Table 6-1 and the assessment on impact on water systems in Section 7.4.
The impacts on the environment of the land areas are discussed in Section 7.6.
The Ministry is of the opinion that the impact of cooling water is the most significant environmental impact during operation of the nuclear power plant. Thus, the modeling to be implemented when studying the environmental impact from warming of the sea must extensively utilize the available background materials. Calculations regarding cooling water must be conservative. Uncertainties in calculation results must be clearly illustrated. Calculations on spreading must be clearly illustrated and the modeling methods must be described.
The cooling water modeling is based on the situation in the summers of 2009–2013 and the winters of 2010–2011 and 2012–2013. The calculations are conservative, assuming the highest possible thermal load.
The starting points for the cooling water modeling system, the spreading of the thermal load, and the impact assess- ment methods used are described in Section 7.4.2.
Assessment of the impacts of abnormal situations and accidents may not be limited to the protective zone or the emergency planning zone for rescue operations. In the Ministry’s opinion, the EIA report must describe various accidents that would cause radioactive releases and describe, with illustrative examples, the extent of the areas of impact and the impacts of the releases on humans and the environment.
The nuclear power plant’s abnormal situations and accidents as well as provisions for these situations are described in Section 4.4.
Possible impacts of abnormal situations and accidents on people and the environment are described and illustrated in Sections 7.13 and 7.14. The impacts of an accident have been assessed based on a severe reactor accident and the spreading of the release, the fallout, and the radiation dose to the general public have been modeled.
The assessment included a study of a variety of accidents. The duration of the release (24–72 hours) and the magnitude of the accident (INES 6 or INES 7) varies.
The impacts of abnormal situations and accidents outside the protective zone and the emergency planning zone for rescue operations have also been extensively assessed.
42 2 EIA procedure, communications and participation Coordinating authority’s statement Processing in the EIA report
The assessment may use the International Nuclear and Radi- ological Event Scale (INES) of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the EIA report must include a clear summary of the review bases. A description of the follow-up measures in case of a potential severe accident must also be included in the EIA report. Furthermore, the assessment must discuss the environmental impact of radioactive substances on the countries in the Baltic Sea region, Norway, and Austria.
The limit value for a severe accident laid down in the Finnish Government Decree on the Safety of Nuclear Power Plants (733/2008) is 100 TBq for cesium-137. This value was used as the source term, which was used to describe an INES 6 accident in the Finnish EIA. Several statements and opinions proposed including an INES 7 accident in the surveys to be conducted. The Ministry of Employment and the Economy is of the opinion that adding a comparison between the survey method used in Finland and the INES 7 survey method would be appropriate.
The environmental impacts caused by a severe accident are discussed in Section 7.13. This Section also mentions the INES classes of the studied accidents. Furthermore, the Section mentions the starting points and the initial values used in the accident modeling. The Section also includes a description of measures to be implemented after an accident.
Section 7.14 describes the impact of an accident on Norway, Austria, and selected Baltic Sea states, and a comparison between a release complying with the Government Decree and an INES 7 accident release.
The abnormal situations to be studied must include any phenom- ena that could be caused by climate change and preparations for such phenomena (sea level fluctuations, other abnormal weather phenomena). These were studied in several statements. The impact of land-uplift and pack ice in the area must also be taken into account.
Section 3.3.1 studies conditions at the plant site and extreme phenomena that will be taken into account in plant design. Management of external threats is discussed in Section 4.3.
The socioeconomic assessments included in the EIA procedure must assess the project’s impacts on employment that were mentioned in the public event on the EIA program both during the construction and during the operation of the plant, taking into account the special characteristics of all localities and areas. The methods used must be described and their selection justified.
The project’s employment impacts during construction and operation are discussed in Sections 7.10.4 and 7.10.5. The assessment methods are described in Section 7.10.2.
According to the EIA program, the organization responsible for the project will study the environmental impacts caused by the production and transport of nuclear fuel, including quarrying of raw uranium, concentration of the ore, conversion, isotope enrichment, and manufacture of nuclear fuel. The environmental impact assessment is based on already existing surveys. The Ministry considers it reasonable that the organization responsible for the project must study the environmental impacts of the entire fuel supply chain in general and, additionally, the company’s opportunities to influence this chain. The opportunities to utilize mixed oxide nuclear fuel, if any, must also be described.
The nuclear fuel supply chain is described in Section 3.7.2, and the supply chain’s quality and environmental objectives are described in Section 3.7.3. Impacts of the nuclear fuel supply chain in general are discussed in Section 7.15. Fennovoima is not planning to use any mixed oxide nuclear fuel in its nuclear power plant. Section 3.7.1.2 includes a general description of mixed oxide fuel and its manufacture.
Nuclear waste management
In the opinion of the Ministry of Employment and the Economy, the report must also study nuclear waste management as a whole. Studying management of operating waste to a sufficient detail is also necessary in order to achieve an overall picture. The report must also describe processing of the nuclear power plant’s decommissioning waste.
The structure of the final disposal facility must be made clear by, for instance, using appropriate illustrations.
Management of operating waste is described in Section 3.12, management of spent nuclear fuel in Section 3.13, and management of decommissioning waste in Section 3.14. The impacts of these types of waste are assessed in Sections 7.11 and 7.12.
Figure 3-13 illustrates the structure of the final disposal facility.
The management of spent nuclear fuel must be described in general terms, in the same way as fuel management has been described. The management of spent nuclear fuel on site must be described and the description of interim storage must include illustrations. The description of the management of spent nuclear fuel must also include the arrangements made for its transport from Pyhäjoki, if any.
The management of spent nuclear fuel is described in general terms in Section 3.13 and the structure of the interim storage facility is illustrated by Figures 3-14 and 3-15. There is a description of the transport of spent nuclear fuel to the final disposal facility in Section 3.13.2 and an assessment of the impacts is available in Section 7.11.3.4.
43