Nuclear power in Europe

HELSINKI, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Nuclear power will play a key role in helping the European Union cut its dependence on fossil fuels and secure future energy supplies, EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said on Friday.

"Nuclear energy will have a prominent role in leading the EU towards a low-carbon society," Rehn said in the text of a speech at a conference in the Finnish city of Turku.

RAUMA, Finland — The cafe where Paivi Alanko-Rehelma serves coffee and smoked fish stands practically in the shadow of a sprawling building site on the island of Olkiluoto where Finland is erecting a nuclear power plant, the island’s third, and Finland’s fifth in the last 30 years.

Rauma is about 10 miles from Olkiluoto, a nuclear plant site.

Finland's Olkiluoto power station was meant to symbolise the resurrection of nuclear power after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and to act as a showcase for Areva of France's new EPR reactor technology.

The first nuclear power station to be built in western Europe since Chernobyl, Olkiluoto 3 would demonstrate that nuclear energy was the obvious solution to growing concerns about CO2 emissions, high fossil fuel prices and dependence on imported energy sources.

Finnish municipalities are to be given the right to refuse permission for the establishment of uranium mines in their territory. A working group preparing changes to Finnish mining legislation proposes that prospecting for uranium would remain legal, but that actually setting up a mine would require the consent of the municipality where it is located.

Finland's current mining law is about 50 years old. The law needs updating, because the present version was drafted at a time when mining was practised mainly by state-run companies. Now most mining companies are foreign, global players.