Because it was a sunny day for a change, we decided to head south for the town of Loviisa (pop. 14 800) on the coast. It's an hour's drive from our home. Loviisa was founded in 1745. The population is 55% Finnish-speaking. Swedish is spoken by 40%. Loviisa is located on the coast of the Gulf of Finland about 90 km to the east of Helsinki. The most important tourist attraction is the Svartholm fortress on an island about 10 km to the south of the town. There is a regular ferry connection to it in the summer. We'll definitely come here again.
Thise the Loviisa nuclear power plant. The first unit came online in 1977 and the second one in 1980. It's got two Soviet-built VVER-440V213 type pressurized water reactors. The containment buildings and the automation and control systems were supplied by Siemens AG. The process computer was built by Nokia. Plenty of modifications and safety features were introduced to the reactor type when these two were built, which the Russians used in their later designs. 10% of Finland's power is produced by these two reactors together or about 1009 MW.
Finland has two other reactors in use in Olkiluoto on the west coast. A third unit is being built. A sixth reactor will be built in the northwest coast in Hanhikivi.
I'm very much in favor of nuclear power. Nuclear fission is the obvious choice if the goal is to avert catastrophic climate change while retaining industrial civilization. Much of the so-called nuclear waste contains massive amounts usable energy.
I'd love it if I had a summer cabin downstream from the cooling water outlet. The Olkiluoto plants use 76 m2/s of cooling water. Its temperature rises about 10 C while removing unusable heat from the turbines.
These pictures are from just outside the power plant area from a boat harbor.
Entering the town of Loviisa
That's the roof of my car in the lower part of the picture. The port of Valko in the distance.
The town hall of a nice little town worth a proper visit. Ours was ex-tempore.
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