Along the pine-lined shores of Finland’s bucolic western coast, a clean energy vision of the Nordic country’s future is quietly taking shape. On the tiny island of Olkiluoto, workers are applying the finishing touches to a new Evolutionary Pressurised Reactor (EPR) set to supply 10% of Finland’s electricity needs. Like all nuclear power reactors, the massive 1600 MW unit will emit virtually no greenhouse gases (GHG) even as it churns out a steady stream of baseload electricity capable of providing power to millions of homes.

“Welcome to the future,” said Pasi Tuohimaa, an executive with Teollisuuden Voima Oyj, the private Finnish company that owns and operates two older reactors at Olkiluoto as well as the new EPR reactor. Standing in the reactor hall of the new unit, due to begin operation in late 2018, Tuohimaa waxed philosophical: “Every morning, when I’m there watching myself in the mirror, I’m really thinking, ‘I’m going to save the world — with nuclear.’”

The country of 5.5 million people has long relied on the atom to supply power and heating to households and energy-intensive industries — especially during the long, dark winters. Now, under a national energy and climate strategy that outlines Finland’s contribution to the 2015 Paris Agreement to combat global warming, the Government envisions a mix of renewable sources and nuclear energy as the key to achieving its loftiest goal: becoming a carbon-neutral society by mid-century.

“One cannot make a difference between climate policy and energy policy nowadays, and the main aim of Finnish energy policy is to lower greenhouse gas emissions,” said Riku Huttunen, Director General of the Energy Department at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment. “The most important instrument for that is renewable energy sources, but of course we should use all the possibilities to cut emissions and nuclear energy provides one good solution for that.”

Finland’s embrace of nuclear power dates back to the late 1970s, when the first of its four existing nuclear power reactors — which provide one-third of Finnish electricity production — began operation. Besides a lack of indigenous fossil fuels, Huttunen said the most important reason for introducing nuclear power was to ensure plentiful energy for the country’s long winters, as well as its forestry, steel and chemical industries.