Baltic Sea.– Today six activists from the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise boarded the cargo ship Happy Ranger in the Fehmarn Belt between Denmark and Germany. The activists are carrying banners reading “Nuclear Madness, made in France”. The ship is carrying steam turbines supplied by the French nuclear company AREVA to the Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor currently under construction in Finland.

Today’s action was taken to highlight the fact that nuclear energy not only exposes the public to radiation hazards, but undermines effective climate protection. Greenpeace is calling on the Finnish government to stop the work at Olkiluoto 3.

“Construction of the EPR reactor in Olkiluoto has been a disaster. This dangerous mistake has cost Finland years of action on climate protection. By choosing nuclear power the Finnish government shut the door on investments in renewable energy and energy saving projects,” said Lauri Myllyvirta , Energy Campaigner with Greenpeace Nordic.

In 2002 Finns were promised that a new reactor would help the country cut its greenhouse gas emissions. But now the owners of the new reactor, far from cutting down on the use of dirty fuels, are planning new polluting fossil-fired power stations. As Greenpeace predicted, the reactor is suffering from chronic quality problems and massive budget overruns.

Construction of Olkiluoto reactor is already more than three years behind schedule and the estimated cost has soared from €3.2 billion to €5.5 billion. While some of that cost will be paid by French taxpayers, the impact of the delay will end up costing 600 euros for every man, woman and child in Finland.

“The Finnish experience once more shows that nuclear power is a dead end. If governments are serious about cutting greenhouse gas emissions, they must focus their efforts on renewable energy and energy efficiency measures. Unlike expensive, dangerous nuclear reactors, these are reliable, fast to implement, and clean,” commented Jan Beránek, head of the nuclear campaign at Greenpeace International.

The International Energy Agency projects that even the most ambitious plans to build hundreds of new nuclear reactors would cut the world’s greenhouse gas emissions by only a few percent, while the potential savings from renewable energy and energy efficiency are ten times bigger. New reactors would make problems with nuclear waste and weapons proliferation worse, and expose taxpayers to huge liabilities.

Regardless of the enormous risks involved, France’s nuclear industry, represented by Areva and EdF, has been hand in hand with President Sarkozy in aggressively promoting and selling their new reactor technology across the globe. Areva is pushing its reactors in at least 13 countries.

Greenpeace’s Energy [R]evolution scenario (5) shows how the world’s nuclear capacity can be phased out by 2030 through smart energy use and the adoption of renewable energy, while rapidly reducing reliance on fossil fuels and meeting ambitious emission reduction targets in accordance with current climate science. Greenpeace calls on all countries to abandon subsidies for nuclear power and commit to a rapid, global and clean energy revolution at the upcoming Copenhagen climate summit.