Confidence building: what gives confidence to the various categories of stake holders?

During the fuelling of the first Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant Unit, discussions about sending spent fuel abroad for reprocessing were very topical and the people of Eurajoki got the impression that spent fuel will not be finally disposed of at Eurajoki. This principle was even written down in the long term strategy documents of Eurajoki and it remained there even for a long time after the government of Finland in 1983 had requested TVO to prepare a time schedule and plans for the final disposal of spent fuel in Finland. It did state that the municipality shall act so that high-active spent fuel will not be disposed of in the Eurajoki area. While TVO accordingly investigated the national solution for final disposal, spent nuclear fuel from the Loviisa nuclear power plant was still returned to Soviet Union. This inspired to a certain extent lack of confidence within the inhabitants of Eurajoki and quite many of them had the feeling that TVO had broken its promise. So this topic has been discussed at Eurajoki generally and in the municipal council especially both in connection with final disposal plans and also in connection with operating licence renewals, power upgrade procedures and Decision in Principle Applications during almost 20 years. Good for confidence building is that the information policy of the utility has been very open, which has also been requested by the safety authority STUK. All incidents in the plants have been reported without delay to authorities and also given to publicity even when not safety related. While operating results of both Olkiluoto units have been of internationally top class this has contributed to the formation of confidence. Routines for dialogue between municipality and utilities have been created in order to guarantee continuity. Thus several types of liaison groups were formed. (author)