Nuclear Power Safety - How The Finnish Get It Right Before They Proceed

In this episode of Risk! Engineers Talk Governance, Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss nuclear power safety with reference to Finland. 

Gaye shares her personal experience as an exchange student in Finland and her connection to the Olkiluoto Power Station. They discuss Finland's approach to nuclear power, including their focus on managing nuclear waste with a whole-of-life appreciation for nuclear power, and that they involve the community as stakeholders in decision-making. They also highlight Finland's commitment to safety and their precaution-based approach rather than risk-based. 

If you’re like to learn more about Richard & Gaye’s due diligence engineering work, head to www.r2a.com.au.

Transcript

Megan (Producer) (00:01):

Welcome to Risk! Engineers Talk Governance. In this episode, due diligence engineers Richard Robinson and Gaye Francis discuss nuclear power safety, especially in relation to Finland and how they focus on getting it right before proceeding.

(00:18):

Please enjoy their chat, and if you do, please give us a rating. Also, don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. If you have any comments or topic ideas, please get in touch via admin@r2a.com..com.au.

Richard Robinson (00:36):

Welcome Gaye to your session on nuclear safety.

Gaye Francis (00:40):

Oh, thank you, Richard.

Richard Robinson (00:42):

Now, the reason why we're doing this is that a long time ago, or perhaps a short time ago, depending on how you look at these things, Gaye was an exchange student of Finland and one of her host fathers was in fact the safety manager manager for the Olkiluoto, you better pronounce it more correctly.

Gaye Francis (00:59):

Olkiluoto

Richard Robinson (01:01):

Olkiluoto Power Station, which is a nuclear power station in Finland. Now interestingly, Gaye's taking her whole family, husband and two kids, on a holiday to Finland and she's going to go to the host family because they've been keeping communication ever since. And her daughters apparently deserve to see a real Christmas in Finland, which is about as chill as you're going to get!

Gaye Francis (01:25):

Hoping for a white Christmas, Richard.

Richard Robinson (01:26):

Really peculiarity, we're just doing some work for Tasports and it turns out that Tasports are having their two new ferries built at, I can't remember how you pronounce that exactly.

Gaye Francis (01:36):

Rauma.

Richard Robinson (01:37):

Rauma, which is a town of about 5,000 people or something. It's not a big place. And you're actually staying where they're building the ferries for Tasmania, which is even more peculiar.

Gaye Francis (01:48):

Yes, Finland's not a very big place, but they do some pretty heavy lifting in industrial terms.

Richard Robinson (01:54):

Well, more than that, just in educational terms, Finland's one of those remarkable places where teachers have, for example, have a very high standing, a very high status. And university, if you qualify, it doesn't matter where on the planet you are, if you qualify, you can be educated, there free, but you have to obviously achieve the academic standard that Finns expect of you. And they just find that that approach to life actually substantially enhances the way in which people look at them in the world. I've also been advised because there was an interesting sort of holiday trip going from up the Gulf of Bothnia to St. Petersburg a while back, and I made some passing remark and Gaye just looked at me blankly and said: Finns do not holiday in Russia.

Gaye Francis (02:33):

They do not holiday in Russia, that's definitely right.

Richard Robinson (02:37):

I'm sure that's probably reinforced in recent times.

Gaye Francis (02:42):

So back to the topic. <laughs>

(02:45):

So one of the interesting things that, and I gave a presentation probably 2015, so a number of years ago, and it was when the nuclear power debate was happening in Australia and I said to Richard, I don't understand. You know the Finns have had nuclear power for a long time.

(03:01):

As you said, I went on exchange and that was 1990 that I went on exchange. So during high school. So the Finns have had nuclear power for a very long time and been able to manage it.

Richard Robinson (03:13):

But they actually do it better than that because they're one of the few places that actually decide that they're going to manage their own nuclear waste.

Gaye Francis (03:18):

They do. And that's what I think one of the key things for me is, they really have a whole-of-life appreciation of nuclear power. So their main research area is actually where to put the spent fuel rods and how they're going to store that and manage that in years to come.

(03:40):

So Olkiluoto is on the west coast of Finland, quite down south about four hours from Helsinki, and I stayed in a little town called Eurajoki, and it's in the municipality of Eurajoki, and the community are definitely aware of the nuclear power station in their community and they actually lobby for it. One of the interesting things was, and we've talked about stakeholders and interested parties before, the community is definitely a key stakeholder in the decisions of the nuclear power station and whether new reactors are built and things like that. And they actually have a right of veto. So if the community doesn't think that this should be done, then it's not done, which is really interesting.

(04:28):

The other thing, so Olkiluoto 3 has just come online in, I'm just looking at my date here, April 2023, it started full regular production, and that's after an 18 year delay. So it was approved in 2005 and it's just come online in 2023. And one of the key reasons was there was some safety concerns around it and basically the regulator in Finland said: No-go until you can prove otherwise that this is safe to go.

Richard Robinson (04:57):

So the commercial imperatives do not rule the day, the safety imperatives rule the day.

Gaye Francis (05:01):

Yes, absolutely. And there's a lot of media and stuff online that basically says this has gone way, way over budget as you could imagine with an 18 year delay and cost blowouts and everything. But the safety regulator, which is the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority in Finland, just basically said no go. And it's sort of interesting because for Finland, as Richard said, they used to get about 60% I think, of their coal from Russia. So they don't want to rely on Russia to get coal to produce electricity, but they're also marketing this, or I dunno whether marketing's the right word, but also advertising this as one of the greatest single climate acts in Finland. So they're going to nuclear power to address the climate change issues.

Richard Robinson (05:54):

Well, also they're up to, I think on EVs, I think aren't they over 50% now? I think.

Gaye Francis (05:59):

Yeah, so they're very, very advanced. And I think when we had this conversation in Australia, I just feel that there's a lack of maturity. Yes, there's been some pretty awful incidents around nuclear power and there's been some lessons learned, but there's some countries that are really, really doing it well that we could learn from. And I don't think you have to start from scratch to be able to plan for that.

(06:26):

But one of the key takeaways for Finland was that that final disposal, and they basically go from reactor safety and the management of the spent fuel. It's actually all done onsite in Eurajoki at the facility. So it's disposed of in sealed, encapsulated steel containers and then finally disposed of, just put in the bedrock.

Richard Robinson (06:58):

Yeah, down quite a decent distance down.

Gaye Francis (06:59):

Oh, very, very distant distance down.

Richard Robinson (07:03):

But they specifically dug that out for the purpose of containing...

Gaye Francis (07:07):

Spent fuel rods.

Richard Robinson (07:08):

And it's so far down that the background radiation and all those sorts of things is not relevant.

Gaye Francis (07:12):

That's right.

(07:13):

This is monitored and they've got QA systems in place to monitor their staff for safety, for radiation exposure. They also do community testing and stuff like that. I have been down into the nuclear power site and you get kitted up in all your (protection wear). You go down in a very, very a bus sort of thing. And it's very interesting as a geeky engineer!

Richard Robinson (07:39):

Well, you compare that to the way which you might remember the low level radiation storage facility we vaguely had a consideration of in Victoria, you might recall that? And so far as I know our low level radiation is still being stored in drums out in the open in various places, and we don't actually have a way of disposing of it. And we've just withdrawn from the whole thing.

Gaye Francis (07:59):

So sort of away and forgotten.

Richard Robinson (08:02):

Yep. Well, we haven't done anything about it, so presume it's just accumulating in the wrong places around the place. And yet if you look at the way the Finns do it, you say: We've got a problem, let's think it through and let's get it right and do it properly the first time.

Gaye Francis (08:15):

And it is that very much precaution-based approach. It's not a risk-based target level of safety approach. It's either right and you proceed or it's not there and you don't go any further until it's fixed.

(08:31):

Which I think is a very, and as I said, I went to Finland in 1990 and the power station had been there for a long time. And one of my host dads was the safety manager there and they were passionate about it. It was safety first at all costs for both their workers and the community as a whole.

Richard Robinson (08:52):

Yeah, it is rather interesting, isn't it? I mean, this is the second time you've been back, I believe?

Gaye Francis (08:56):

I've been back three or four or five times to Finland. It was a life-changing experience exchange and yeah, I've taken my husband, he's been to the nuclear power station. He did say to me that probably not a day out for the two girls at 10yo and 7yo, but maybe next time I take them back I could get them involved in that. But we might do the drive by the Rauma shipyards and have a look at the new Spirit of Tasmania being built. That'd be pretty cool.

Richard Robinson (09:26):

Yeah, it's just fascinating, isn't it? It's fascinating that the Tasmanians, when they went scouring the planet to build ferries basically decided on Finland. It does tell you a bit about the society and the culture as a whole, and it does reflect a bit on the Nordics generally. I mean, as I said (in previous episode), I was at the AMPI conference, the Australasian Marine Institutes, as a keynote speaker and the majority of the women marine pilots were Nordics, I've got to say that. And that was just an obvious thing. And they talk about particularly well educated and competent people. You just realised how obvious it was.

Gaye Francis (09:59):

It's just part of their life. I mean, you jump on a ferry between Finland and Sweden, you jump on a ferry between Estonia and Finland. That's just getting around on ships is what you do.

(10:13):

So I hope you found that interesting. That's sort of just a little bit of a takeaway that I had from my time in Finland. And as an engineer, I always recoil a little bit when we don't even seem to be able to have a nuclear power debate in Australia. There's a lot of good stuff happening out there. And I think that we can learn from other cultures and other places as well.

Richard Robinson (10:40):

I think the Finns, particularly in their educational program. In one of my former lifes, I sort of started the education branch in Victoria division of Engineers' Australia, and getting the engineers interested in education, the philosophy, education, I found it quite a difficult thing to do. And I've always, always been remarkably impressed with the Finns. I forget which Australian University has got a Finnish connection. Actually, I remember seeing it advertised at Melbourne Airport when I was coming out one time.

Gaye Francis (11:04):

Okay. I'm not sure.

Richard Robinson (11:05):

I can't remember, but one of the Australian universities has.

Gaye Francis (11:09):

There you go. So thank you for joining us again, and we'll be back next time with hopefully another interesting podcast.

Richard Robinson (11:15):

Thank you.