Olkiluoto. Im kleinen Ort in Finnland sollte das Flaggschiff der „Renaissance“ der Atomkraft in Europa gebaut werden. Der erste Reaktor der sogenannten „Dritten Generation“, der European Pressurized Reactor (EPR), das neueste Design von AREVA, dem französischen Atomkonzern an dem auch Siemens beteiligt ist.
Der erste neue Auftrag für einen Reaktor nach langen Jahren der Dürre für die Atomindustrie. Von AREVA zu einem schlüsselfertigen Festpreis verkauft, fest versprochen für die Fertigstellung im Jahr 2009.
Wer sich das von der finnischen Zeitung Helsingin Sanomat veröffentlichte Foto der Baustelle vom Dezember 2008 anschaut, wird rasch feststellen, dass es mit der Fertigstellung wohl noch eine Weile dauern wird.
Doch die Bombe steht im Textbericht der Zeitung: Wie aus einem Anhang der „interim figures“ (Quartalsbericht?) von Siemens hervorgeht, hat der finnische Auftraggeber in Korrespondenz mit AREVA/Siemens Schadensersatzforderungen in Höhe von 2.4 Mrd EUR angemeldet. Auf Siemens würden 700 Mio entfallen.
Das Projekt hinkt 38 Monate, mehr als 3 Jahre, hinter den Planungen her.
Und auf der Baustelle sieht es abenteuerlich aus. Aus einem Bericht der Journalistin Mariah Blake im Washington Monthly (Hervorhebungen durch mich):
When I visited in November, it was teeming with lumbering backhoes, churning cranes, and workers doubled under sacks of concrete. Hundreds of metal shipping containers and canvas tents were scattered around a fifteen-acre hole blasted into the granite bedrock. Rising from one end of the pit was the containment building, a ninety-foot-tall tower with its top wrapped in scaffolding, which houses the reactor. From afar it looked like a solid pillar of concrete, but as I picked my way through stacks of rusty I beams and giant spools of cable, I noticed Bondo-colored patches scattered across its face. Eventually, I looped around back and crossed a rickety plywood bridge that led inside. The interior of the containment building was lined with a solid layer of steel that was crisscrossed with ropy welds. On this surface someone had scrawled the word „Titanic.“
These marks are the last remaining hints of the problems that have plagued this thick outer shell, the last line of defense in case of a meltdown. The steel liner was hand forged using outdated plans by a Polish subcontractor, which had no prior nuclear experience. As a result, the holes for piping were cut in the wrong spots, and the gaps along the weld joints were too wide. Entire sections had to be ripped apart and rebuilt. And the containment liner is not unique. Virtually every stage of the construction process has been dogged by similar woes, from the nine-foot-thick foundation slab (the concrete was mixed with too much water, making it weaker than had been called for in the plans) to the stainless steel pipes that feed water through the reactor core (they had to be recast because the metal was the wrong consistency). To date, more than 2,200 „quality deficiencies“ have been detected, according to the Finnish nuclear authority, STUK. Largely as a result, the project, which was supposed to be completed in 2009, is three years behind schedule and is expected to cost $6.2 billion, 50 percent more than the original estimate. And the numbers could keep climbing. „There are still some very challenging phases ahead,“ says Petteri Tiippana, STUK’s assistant director for projects and operational safety. „Things will have to go extremely well if those responsible for building the project are to hit the new targets.“
Das ist der finanzielle GAU von Olkiluoto, der „nuclear meltdown“ wie ClimateProgress so schön berichtet. Das Flaggschiff der europäischen Atomindustrie hat einen zweiten Namen: Titanic.