Greenpeace activists, who boarded the world’s second largest oil rig in an attempt to stop it making its journey to Greenland for a deep-water drilling project, had to abandon their protest due to dangerous weather conditions. Read the full story

Four Greenpeace protesters, who scaled an oil rig off the coast of Greenland and stopped it drilling for 40 hours, have been deported back to their home countries. The activists, who were arrested on September 2, forced Edinburgh-based oil company Cairn Energy to cease all operations for two days. Read the full story

Greenpeace has announced that it has been blocked by a Danish warship in its efforts to sail a protest boat to an oil drilling platform off the coast of Greenland. The environmental group’s ship, Esperanza, was apparently halted outside a 500-metre exclusion zone around the Cairn Energy rig, 200km from Aasiaat, on Greenland’s west coast. In an email statement issued on Monday, Greenpeace said Denmark, which holds sovereignty over Greenland, had sent a ship to confront their vessel. Read the full story

Despite the vocal protests of the Swedish government, Greenpeace has started its plan to drop large boulders into the Kattegat sound between the Danish and Swedish shores in a bid to stop bottom trawling by cod fishermen. The global activist group will toss 180 boulders that weigh between one and three tonnes each into two endangered cod areas in the Kattegat. Read the full story

Danish police arrested three activists from Greenpeace as they tried to board a cargo ship carrying coal bound for Denmark. The Nordic branch of Greenpeace announced that several of its members were trying to get onto the Hanjin Imbari ship at a point just south of the Great Belt Bridge that connects two of Denmark’s main islands. Read the full story

Finland’s plans to build the world’s first next-generation pressurised water reactor has hit a rough patch as the initial estimated price tag has now doubled to nearly 4.5 billion euro. Areva, the French nuclear construction company building the power plant, announced that the final costs for the reactor will be 50 percent higher than originally estimated, according to Les Echos, a business newspaper.

The reasons for the increase in building costs at the power plant in Olkiluoto Read the full story

Finland’s fifth nuclear power plant, which is currently under construction, has been put on ice pending new studies on the safety of its building methods. The suspension resulted from a report recently issued by Greenpeace that found irregularities in the welding.

Although Finland’s nuclear safety authority (STUK) rejected many of the claims made by Greenpeace, it will conduct intensive studies on the safety and quality of the welds, which are critical parts of the reactors’ structure. STUK’s Assistant Director Petteri Tiippana said, “The ministry will ask for a report from us on this issue very soon and we are planning to respond to that within the next week”.

This rare nuclear project in Western Europe that is being constructed by Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) is expected to be finished in 2011. It will be Finland’s fifth nuclear reactor. The Gulf Times reports that the progress of the reactor, which has already suffered from a two-year delay, is being watched very closely by other members of the European Union who have been wary of building new nuclear power stations.

Tiippana is confident that the welds in question are up to standard. “The safety-significant welds in the concrete structures are well done. There are no deficiencies in the welding procedures, welding qualification and the welds themselves,” he said.

But Greenpeace argues that its report also included load-bearing welds, which were not addressed by STUK. Lauri Myllyvitra, a Greenpeace official, stated in an email: “Six of the 11 welding procedure specifications we have obtained concern load-bearing welds. The documents undeniably show that when the welding of the reactor building started, the required specifications had not been finalised or approved and hence the welders did not know how to fulfil the safety requirements.”