Incident at Finnish nuclear power plant under control

• 3 years ago (2020-12-14)
• David Flin

Europe 1068 Nuclear 643

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An incident in reactor 2 of the Olkiluoto nuclear power station in the southwest of Finland took place on 10 December. Authorities stated that there was no danger from the incident. STUK , the Finnish nuclear safety authority, confirmed that the situation was stable and that the reactor had been shut down. Unit 2 has a capacity of 890 MW.

In a statement, STUK said: “A severe abnormal disturbance occurred at the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant unit 2. The disturbance was possibly caused by a fault in the purification system for the reactor waster. There was no radioactive release to the environment.” STUK added that there was no need for protective measures and it did not expect any danger outside the unit. It said that no workers or personnel had been exposed to radiation or injured in the incident.

Petteri Tiippana, Director General of STUK, said: “STUK started the emergency activities immediately in full force due to exceptionally high radiation levels inside the unit. There are about 80 people following the situation, but we do not see an acute threat.” He added that: “There is no indication of fuel leakage and there are now no more abnormal radiation levels at the unit.”

Both STUK and TVO , the plant operator, said that there had been no radioactive releases to the atmosphere and plant workers had not been exposed to higher-than-normal radiation levels. TVO said that the unit was now in cold shutdown, and had been from 6pm on 10 December, less than six hours from the start of the incident. TVO said the reactor pressure had been lowered and its temperature was below 100°C.

The automatic shutdown of the fission reaction was triggered by elevated radiation levels in the unit’s containment structure. The shutdown caused the containment to be sealed off.