Information Centres of European Nuclear Power Plants
An instrument for making dialogue with inhabitants and community
During the period of 4th – 23rd October, 2008 the Opened Joint-Stock Company Concern “Energoatom” (Russia) jointly with Concern «Fortum» (Finland) and other European partners arranged a particularized training course under the heading “Nuclear power – New generation”. The training was performed in form of car-race on public roads. The participants took off from Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant, Sosnovy Bor, Leningrad region.
The project was supported from the side of Public Council of State Corporation “ROSATOM”, Branch Institute for an Additional Professional Education “Atomprof” (Saint-Petersburg), Moscow Centre of International Atomic Energy Agency (WANO-MC), urban administration of Sosnovy Bor and Association on Public Relations of Saint-Petersburg and Leningrad region.

The Car Race 2008 route included visits to Nuclear Power Plants of Russia, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Czechia, Hungary, Lithuania and Central office of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna (Austria). One of targets of the seminar was getting practical acquaintance with European colleagues experience in the field of relations with community and inhabitants.
- 1. Information Centres – an instrument for making dialog with community
All European Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) pay great attention to increase distribution of information about the current status and future trends of the nuclear power industry among inhabitants. Special departments at each NPP do their best to mould population’s positive attitude to this way of electricity production in order to eliminate common stereotypes connected with a nuclear power plant location in the vicinity of a built-up area.
Photo 1

For the purpose of making the inhabitants more acquainted with the nuclear power generating industry special Information Centers are built on the area of each European NPP. The Information Centres are opened for everybody, free of charge and do not require any authorization or pass. It is also allowed to take photos and video records, to touch the displays. Probably because of these facts European NPPs Information Centres are very popular and a dozen of thousands people visit them every year. For example, “ISAR” NPP, located in the vicinity of Munich, accepted 20 000 people in 2007, but saying the truth only 500 of them were authorized to visit the site of “ISAR” NPP itself. The Czech NPP “TEMELIN” accepted 27 000 visitors in 2007 and 20% of them were authorized to visit the site.
Of course it is prohibited to take photos and video records on site of European NPPs. Therefore the visitors take pictures against a background of the Information Centres, exhibits, as well as against a background of NPPs silhouette.
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Speaking about the exhibition content and scope of presented information and design it is wise to point out that all Information Centres look similar in some degree.
Most of them are constructed in traditional state-of-the-art style, i.e. in from of light glass pavilions. However there are some exclusions, for example the Information Centre of “TEMELIN” NPP is located in the building of former medieval castle.
2. NPPs Information Centres: traditions and experience
Photo 3
In our opinion one of the most interesting and large information centres was arranged on the area of Olkiluoto NPP in Finland. The content of this cognitive and captivating exhibition was designed to be easily understood by inhabitants of different age, even children, and having the most skeptical points of view.
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In current age of scientific and technical progress we shouldn’t forget about history of the nuclear-power engineering development, in particular of what everything started from. Therefore at the entrance of the exhibition at the Olkiluoto NPP Information Centre we were met by Albert Einstein, whose scientific works played a great role in the development of modern physics. His works were laid in the foundation of such sciences as quantum electrodynamics, quantum field theory, atomic and nuclear physics, elementary-particle physics and other divisions of physics and astrophysicist.
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A fuel assembly model is exhibited in all Information Centres, as well as a full-scale reactor core model. You can also come inside a reactor vessel.
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You have also an opportunity to sit at the control unit desk as you are a principal engineer for reactor control.
The Information Centre guide explains visitors the Nuclear Power Plant structure and its principle of operation. A functional diagram of the Nuclear Power Plant structure is presented in form of electronic stand or large-scale model, in which you can find all elements of reactor and turbine halls, as well as all down to the smallest pipelines and their marking.
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Some of such large-scale models or stands are quite expensive for NPPs, up to 2 000 000 Euro. However the NPPs administration consider availability of such models as necessary both for visitors and for personnel.
Photo 7
The Olkiluoto NPP Information Centre has some game-playing exhibits designed not only for adults but for children too, for example the exhibit “Funny Submarine”. The environmental condition of the area around Olkiluoto NPP is regular monitored since 1972. So, sitting inside this Funny Submarine we can perform the environmental monitoring on our own and give the conclusion. The conclusion, of course, is always positive.
Photo 8 or 9
In order to show visitors that we face radioactivity in our habitual life quite often than we suspect to be, the guide suggests us to measure the dose level of radiation from elements of our ordinary life and surrounded medium, such as wrist quartz-crystal watch, granite and etc.
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Moreover in the Information Centres of Olkiluoto and ISAR NPPs there are special exhibits-devices which make radiation visible. The matter is that evolution of human and animal worlds took place in an irradiating surrounded medium. People are always affected by a background ionizing radiation coming from radioactive substances in the soils, space and etc. Every second more than 100 000 gamma-quantums clash with human body. We can’t see these gamma-quantums, but we can visualize their trajectory and traces by means of one of the exhibits presented there.
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It was discovered during our trip that many people consider that electric power generation using wind force is more effective, chipper and safe. In witness of the opposite one of such wind generators was installed on the area of Olkiluoto NPP. Its output power is 2 kW. This amount is equal to an electric kettle consumption power. Moreover it works only while it is windy. It doesn’t look like effective enough. Would you agree with this?
Photo 13
It is not a secret that there are many people with extremely negative attitude to NPPs construction. For this purpose in almost all Information Centres the visitors are suggested to generate a couple of electric power kilowatts on their own, and to light a bulb or switch on an electric power drill, or a fan, or a mixer. So that to give them opportunity to assess the whole difficulty of this task. For this purpose a guide suggests one of the visitors to take place on the exercise bicycle and start to drive it. The exercise bicycle is connected to the above mentioned domestic electric appliances. If you drive quite fast and long, which is the most important, you will have a chance to switch on a device with the highest capacity.
Photo 14
At ISAR NPP there is similar version of the experiment with electric power generation by means of exercise bicycle, but the output power is presented there in form of diagram on an electronic panel. On the panel the bulbs light up gradually with increasing of the output power.
With a view of NPPs security the excursions do not include visit to the reactor hall and the control unit. However, at the ISAR NPP Information Centre it is possible to visit these objects directly from the Information Centre building.
The matter is that there are video cameras installed in the reactor hall and the control unit room, which can be activated from the control desk located in the conference-hall of the Information Centre. The cameras are controlled by means of joystick and they give an opportunity to watch everything inside these halls from the large-scale screen.
Photo 15
All NPPs have their own spent fuel temporary storage. In accordance with European Union Law each country is obliged to carry-out the spent fuel and nuclear wastes burial within its own area, and it is prohibited to export them abroad.
At Olkiluoto and PAKS NPPs it is possible to get special authorization from administration for visit on the site of radioactive wastes storage, where you can also watch the spent fuel treatment and the fuel bundle placement into special containers. A full-scale prototype of a copper container, which the spent fuel assemblies are subjected to be placed into, as well as the way of its burial within the rock are presented at the exhibitions of almost all Information Centres we have visited.
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Specialists of the Olkiluoto NPP Information Centre created for their visitors the cartoons: the first is about the radwaste wastes long-term storage and the second is about Olkiluoto-3 NPP being currently constructed on the area of their Plant. These cartoons are demonstrated to the groups of visitors both in the conference-hall and in a large liquid-crystalline monitor located in the exhibition hall.
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ISAR NPP has at its disposal video records of the spent fuel storage container testing, as well as tests of the reactor containment for crush equal in force to the crush with a small jetliner. These two and other movies are willingly demonstrated by the Information Centre specialists in the course of excursions.
All Information Centres have spacious conference halls and lection halls equipped with state-of-the-art audio- and video equipment for presentations performance.
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For the purpose of inhabitants information and joining to this industrial brunch the management company issues a huge amount of literature of different sort. This literature is designed for different people accounting their age and social position and includes many informative booklets about nuclear power nature and its safety for surroundings, as well as about a nuclear power plant operation.
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Among these documents you can find a quarterly and annular reports on NPP operation, reports on ecological situation assessment, books speaking about the NPP’s history from the date it was laid down. Moreover you will find magazines about the NPP’s staff sport and cultural life, many funny cards and bookmarks for children, depicting atoms if form of funny little men, calendars and etc.
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All these informative literature is normally issued in two languages, the state language and English, and our nearest neighbors from Finland issue it also in Russian. Everyone visiting the Information Centre can take these papers free of charge and in unlimited scope.
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In order to prove the visitors that electric power production by means of nuclear power plant is completely safe for surrounded medium some NPPs use original and unexpected details in addition to a traditional content of the Information Centre exhibition. For example at PAKS NPP (Hungary) we saw a small flock of sheep walking on a grass-plot directly on site, which is proudly demonstrated to visitors by NPP guides.
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The acquaintance with social and public sides of Hungarian atomic scientists was very cognitive and outstanding.
Owing to an active help from the side of Ms. Tatyana Kern, PAKS NPP employer and Head of Union of Hungarian Compatriots, the Care race participants visited the following objects: the rehabilitation centre and its yacht club; the fish-farm arranged on the area of former open pits and the farm with wild and rare specimens of Hungarian domestic animals, which is carefully supported by the PAKS NPP employers sponsorship.
In conclusion it is wise to point out that all this huge and painstaking efforts made by specialists of the European NPPs’ Information Centres appears to give a significant result.
Thus in accordance with data of a social questioning in Hungary the PAKS NPP accepts about 30 000 visitors every year. And for the period of last 20 yeas an average number of people having positive attitude to the Nuclear Power Plant operation comprises 70%, which is one of the best indices in Europe, and allows to recon on the government positive decision with regard to construction of new nuclear power generating units in this country.
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Representatives of Sweden NPPs have also gained quite good results. Following data of the Sweden a social questioning more than 80% of population have positive attitude to the nuclear power engineering. Exactly owing to everyday activity of the NPPs Information Centres’ specialists during the last decade Sweden experts establish a fact of stable increasing of people sympathy to this kind of industrial brunch.
The Sweden government didn’t take a decision about new power generating units construction, but ready to give an authorization for prolongation the exploitation periods of NPPs are currently in operation.






















Sindskort is de Nederlandse vestiging van de Hermitage open. Tot voor enige tijd was die naam voorbehouden aan het voormalige winterpaleis van de tsaren in St. Petersburg. Dit jaar is er een hermitage geopend aan de Nieuwe Herengracht in Amsterdam. Is het de moeite waard?








































