Waiting for a nuclear disaster

More breaking news on nuclear safety from Nuclear Reaction this morning; we found the Olkiluoto 3 construction site in Finland, where they are building the so-called state of the art European Pressurised nuclear Reactor (EPR), to be unsafe after examining leaked documents from Areva, the French company building it. Olkiluoto 3 is a white elephant whose construction has been mired with 1,500 flaws, is £1.5 billion over budget and is already running 2-3 years late.

Add to this the revelation that welders haven't got a clue how to construct the nuclear reactor and are receiving only two weeks’ training on the job - instead of the proper degree that’s required on this specialised project.

(Areva by the way is the same company that's been given the contract to manage Sellafield in Cumbria, home to vast quantities of radioactive waste stockpiles, and the reactor design is the same one that Gordon Brown would like to see built here in the UK.)

This news follows a recent accident in France, where there was a nuclear leak in Tricastin that shocked the world. As France advertises itself as a nuclear energy pioneer with 80 per cent of its energy coming from nuclear, this couldn't have come at a worse time.

It's become clear that the problems associated with Olkiluoto 3 are a result of shoddy construction work by the sub-contractors that Areva employs to carry out the job. Compromising on the quality of construction material to cut spiralling costs should be a strict no-no when you're building a nuclear reactor. But all that goes out of the window when all Areva is interested in is getting Olkiluoto 3 up and running as it desperately tries to sell its dodgy reactor around the world.

But, as things go from bad to worse for Areva, the safety concerns we've exposed not only make it a risky project that could have catastrophic consequences in case of a leak, but reinforces the argument that the only way forward is to halt the project and put environment and public safety first.