Finland To Introduce Law Next Year Phasing Out Coal (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Finland will introduce legislation next year to phase out coal and increase carbon taxes, a top government official told Reuters, which would require the country to find alternative energy sources to keep its power system stable. Coal produces roughly 10 percent of the energy consumed by Finland, which is the Nordics' heaviest coal consumer and burned about 4.1 million tons of oil equivalent in 2016. "This strategy has a goal of getting rid of coal as an energy source by 2030 [...] We have to write a law [...] and that will be next year," Riku Huttunen, director general in Finland's energy department, said. The law will, however, leave "room for manoeuvre" to ensure security of supply, he said, meaning coal-fired power plants could still be available to avoid the risk of blackouts. Finland is increasing its nuclear capacity, which could replace coal. But that may not be sufficient, a Nordic power trader said, as Finland will receive less nuclear power from neighboring Sweden, which is phasing out two reactors. Helsinki is raising its nuclear power capacity to reduce dependency on Russian energy imports. Two new reactors, Olkiluoto 3 and Hanhikivi 1, are due to go online in 2018 and 2024, respectively.

Comments

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO

[Viol8]

"upgrade to coal"

I think the last time that phrase was actually valid was some time in the 18th century when the first steam engine was built.

Apparently you don't understand the fundamental problems with coal.

A) its produces the largest amount of CO2 per BTU of any fossil fuel

B) It doesn't matter how much you wash it, it still pollutes horribly even if you ignore the CO2 mainly due to sulphur dioxide and particulates in the smoke.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO

[Ayano]

Now if every household used coal just like you, we'd look just like china!

They'll have clean coal

[Anonymous Coward]

That's how you actually get clean coal: Stop using that shit.

Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good.

[Viol8]

At least some countries have the balls to give the finger to the ignorant CND hippies who still equate nuclear power with nuclear weapons because they have the square root of fuck all clue about the different types of reactor design.

Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good.

[burtosis]

That and they seem to be on top of proper disposal unlike here in the US and elsewhere. These social democracies seem to be the least dysfunctional and have the highest quality of life for citizens. It's a shame it can't be properly reprocessed but that's the state of affairs in the world today. Nuclear is a far better option than coal for a variety of reasons. Until battery capacity becomes extremely cheap, countries will need a near zero emission method of creating necessary base loads if they want to generate energy responsibly.

Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good.

[jedidiah]

When you are the size of one of several large American cities in terms of population, EVERY problem is tiny and a lot easier to solve.

Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good.

[jedidiah]

> Some of those hippies sure do know more about the dangers of nuclear waste than you.

We've had the means to re-use spent fuel since the 70s. Anti-nuke hysteria has kept the industry from moving forward with new and better ideas.

Meanwhile, we just kill ourselves more slowly in our attempts to avoid nuclear power. Coal is really a great example of that.

Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good.

[amorsen]

So, dissolve the US, make the states into nations, and every problem is tiny and a lot easier to solve?

Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good.

[tlambert]

There is no proper way to dispose of highly radioactive nuclear waste. Only ways that are less dangerous than others, statistically speaking. What convinced you that the situation in Finland is significantly better than in, say, Germany?

Well, for one thing, they have no Germans.

For another, they have spent fuel reprocessing plants, and so they don't really have nuclear waste, to speak of; instead, they have more fuel for the reactors, and a bunch of medical grade nuclear materials.

For, you know, treating prostate and brain cancer, performing medical imaging, and so on.

The U.S. isn't reprocessing their waste, and since plutonium production is almost entirely shut dow, the U.S. tends to buy its medical radioactives from other countries.

The U.S. appears to prefer to store their spent nuclear fuel in pools of water, like Japan did in Fukushima, rather than reprocessing it like a civilized country.

Re:Increasing its nuclear capacity? Good.

[blindseer]

You obviously didn't even click on the link I gave, it redirects to a Wikipedia page titled "Reprocessed uranium". It's kind of hard to miss, it's in large bold letters at the top of the page. If you read the short, three paragraph, article you will see in the last paragraph a mention of DUPIC. DUPIC is in short chopping up spent LWR fuel into little bits and recladding it in a bundle for CANDU. There is even a link to an article going into detail on how CANDU is capable of burning natural uranium, reprocessed uranium, plutonium, and thorium.

Since you are unlikely to go back to the Wikipedia page I'll post the link here in hopes that maybe you'll read this and learn something.
http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/brat_...

Then again, I'll just quote a part that I think is most relevant.

CANDU technology offers another unique option for the back end of the LWR fuel cycle, which completely avoids the need for wet reprocessing and fissile-material recovery. The "DUPIC" fuel cycle, or "direct use of spent PWR fuel in CANDU", utilizes the non-separated, non-enhanced waste product of LWRs directly as CANDU fuel (Keil, 1992).

The transfer from LWR to CANDU can be literally "direct", involving only the cutting of spent LWR fuel rods to CANDU length (~50 cm), resealing (or double-sheathing), and reengineering into cylindrical bundles suitable for CANDU geometry.

Alternatively, a dry reprocessing technology has been developed which removes only the volatile fission products from the spent LWR fuel mix (Lee, 1998; Sullivan, 1998). After removal of the cladding, a thermal-mechanical process is used to reduce the spent LWR fuel pellet to a powder, which is then sintered and pressed into CANDU-sized pellets.

The DUPIC process is much simpler than conventional wet-chemistry techniques for reprocessing, and promises to be cheaper. It presents a significant anti-proliferation benefit as well, since radioactive fission products and fissile material are not separated. In addition, since the heat load of spent DUPIC fuel is similar to that of the original spent LWR fuel, disposal requirements do not increase. However, since approximately 50% more energy can be derived from LWR fuel by burning it as DUPIC fuel in a CANDU reactor, the disposal cost is expected to be lower than either spent LWR or CANDU fuel (Baumgartner, 1998).

Between the extremes of conventional reprocessing and the DUPIC fuel cycle, a spectrum of options exists. The CANDU reactorâ(TM)s high neutron economy offers many options for exploiting the CANDU/LWR synergism, allowing customization to meet local requirements and capabilities. Pursuing these various options requires international cooperation, such as the Canada-South Korea partnership that has pioneered the DUPIC process. South Korea has a fleet of both LWR and CANDU reactors, and can thus benefit from the synergism within its existing nuclear infrastructure (Lee, 1998).

That's just one way to reprocess spent fuel. Using CANDU and DUPIC we can "burn the fuel twice" and get much more from the mined and refined uranium we have. Add to this some other simple reprocessing, like chemically separating the plutonium (reactor grade, useless for weapons) and mixing it with thorium to make fuel, and we have all kinds of ways to reprocess fuel instead of dumping it in a hole in the ground. This is effectively unlimited energy, using technology we developed decades ago, so no new technology or materials needed. We can do this now, while we wait for solar and wind power to catch up.

Re:So...

[haruchai]

Maybe next time they'll buy a Korean reactor which only takes 4 years to start.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

If so, they should check the certification of parts very carefully.

"In 2012, a probe was opened regarding some fraudulently-certified parts installed in five OPR-1000 reactors over a ten-year period.
Hanbit-5 and -6, which had a greater number of fraudulent parts, were shut down until the parts could be replaced, and Hanbit-3 and -4 and Hanul-3 were allowed remain on-line pending parts replacement.
Hanbit-5 and -6 were cleared for restart in early 2013, but in April 2013, following a tip, four additional units were shut down and not allowed to restart until fraudulently-certified safety-related control cabling was replaced: Shin Kori-1 and -2 and Shin Wolsong-1 and -2; although construction on Shin Wolsong-2 was complete, it had not yet achieved operational status, and it was not allowed to start up until cabling was replaced.
The same cabling was used at the APR-1400 units then under construction at Shin Kori (Units 3 & 4), forcing a year-long delay in their startup"

I say this on just about every energy thread

[rsilvergun]

I'm in the States and I'll be happy to support nuclear when you can find a way to get the 20% of my citizenry to stop believing in crap like "Government's not the solution, it's the problem". Until then you're basically one round of lobbying and anti-bureaucracy sentiment away from the kinds of lax safety regulations that resulted in Fukushima. Exhibit B right here while I'm at it.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO

[MightyMartian]

Absolutely. Even with scrubbing, coal is just simply a dirty fuel that has no business being used to produce enegery in a modern industrialized nation in the 21st century.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO

[CrimsonAvenger]

B) It doesn't matter how much you wash it, it still pollutes horribly even if you ignore the CO2 mainly due to sulphur dioxide and particulates in the smoke.

Plus the radioactives. Mustn't forget that. Yes, there are radioactive elements in coal. Which typically go up the smokestack in a coal plant. Because coal stack scrubbers aren't actually designed to deal with uranium and thorium, which you find in tiny amounts in coal (and tiny amounts multiplied by a metric-fuckton of coal being burned adds up to more radioactives released into the air than nuclear power has ever managed).

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO

[blind biker]

Yes, radioactive elements released into the environment due to coal use is significantly larger than with nuclear plants (per unit of energy) but even that is NOWHERE near the main problem with coal-generated pollutants: much bigger problem is the amount of heavy metals released in the environment, including mercury!
It used to be so that salmon was an unabiguously healthy nutrient. That has changed dramatically in the last three decades, as coal-fired powerplants installations have grown geometrically.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Now if every household used coal just like you, we'd look just like china!

. . . except the air would be so bad, that we wouldn't even be able to see what we look like.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO

[ShanghaiBill]

Yes, radioactive elements released into the environment due to coal use is significantly larger than with nuclear plants

Not true. This is mostly a myth. Most radiation from coal is thorium, which stays in the ash, and is not biologically active. The comparison was made in 1978, when fly ash stack emission standards for coal were way more lax than today. Even so, coal radiation was only more than nukes during "normal operations", but nearly all environmental radiation from nukes is from leaks and accidents.

There are plenty of good reasons to stop burning coal, but "radiation" isn't one of them.

Re:They won't be able to escape the Russians...

[Anonymous Coward]

Olkiluoto 3 is built by French Areva, and is currently 9 years behind schedule. It should have been up an running in 2010.

Hanhikivi would be built by Russian Rosatom, which of course could have some political issues. It isn't even clear that building will start (though preparations are already being made at the site), the project status is "proposed". So I won't be holding my breath until i can power my house with that sweet and cuddly fission power...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Unit_3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanhikivi_Nuclear_Power_Plant

Re:They won't be able to escape the Russians...

[cheesybagel]

I can't explain why the Finns decided to involve the Russians at all.

Because the Russians build the reactors (relatively) cheaply and they actually meet the accorded schedules and budget (yes, surprising, I know). To a large degree this is because the Russians haven't lost their construction expertise. The Russians didn't spend nearly as much time without building new reactors like a lot of Western nations. Also because of the failure at Chernobyl, for quite some time there was an impetus in Russia to replace ancient RMBK (graphite) reactors with more modern VVER (pressurized water) reactors and that resulted in new construction.

Typically the control systems for the exported Russian reactors are actually built elsewhere, like in Western Europe, so the Russians would only actually build the large mechanical parts. The fuel also doesn't need to come from Russia, there are 3rd party sources, and they can train local staff. So that isn't that much of a big deal.

Re:They are going to dig it all up and burn it

[Maxo-Texas]

That's not how coal forms.

That's not even close to how coal forms.

Too Easy - Protectionism at work

[pubwvj]

This is really a protectionism measure. Finland has no domestic coal production. What they're doing is blocking energy imports to protect their domestic energy sector, what there is of it. Not a bad idea, but that is the truth.

Re:Coal gets a bad rap IMHO

[Applehu Akbar]

Coal is so low in energy density compared to nuclear that the sheer tonnage (or tonneage, as the case may be) of coal that has to be mined per megawatt magnifies the effect of every pollutant in it. And that's before we even consider the carbon.

Re:They are going to dig it all up and burn it

[haruchai]

By the time any coal forming today is usable as coal, human civilization (and maybe humans themselves) won't be recognizable.

Because we'll all be wearing disguises?

Yes. The same way the dinosaurs who were around when the coal we dig up now was still plant matter are now disguised as birds