Keynote speakers
Monday 23rd May at 10.45

Pekka Sauri
Deputy Mayor of City of Helsinki
The Importance of the Underground Spaces in the Urban Environment

Professor Håkan Stille
KTH - Royal Institute of Technology
Rock Engineering and Tunnels - a nordic approach

Timo Äikäs
Executive Vice President, Posiva Oy
Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel - From Plans to Reality in Finland

Biographical details of Mr. Timo Äikäs

Mr. Timo Äikäs is the Executive Vice President of Posiva. The principal mission of the company is the spent fuel management of its owners Teollisuuden Voima Oy (TVO) and Fortum Power and Heat Oy.

Mr. Äikäs graduated from the University of Turku in Finland in 1977. He holds the degree of the Master of Science in Engineering Geology. Mr. Äikäs started his professional career as a consultant working with projects for construction, tunnelling and groundwater supply both in Finland and abroad. As a consultant for TVO power company he became assigned in 1980 to the R&D work aiming at developing a geologic disposal concept for the disposal of low and intermediate nuclear wastes, as well as, siting the repository. In 1982 he became also involved with the project of TVO aiming at the disposal of the spent nuclear fuel of the Olkiluoto power plant. In 1986 he was appointed the chief geologist of TVO the main task comprising the siting of the deep repository for spent nuclear fuel. In this capacity he was in charge for the preparation of the site selection research programme and consequently also in charge for implementing and conducting the site characterisation at selected candidate sites located in various parts of the country.

As TVO and Fortum, the owners of the Olkiluoto and Loviisa nuclear power plants, established a joint nuclear waste management company Posiva, Mr. Äikäs was appointed company’s manager for georesearch in 1995. The main focus of the geoscientific work was in the site characterisation and evaluation for the deep geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel. Since 1st of January 2001, after Government had made a positive decision on geologic disposal for spent nuclear fuel, Mr. Äikäs was appointed to lead the engineering as the responsible director. In this position he has been in charge for the development of engineered barriers, as well as, for the design of the disposal facility at Olkiluoto.

Currently Mr. Äikäs holds the position of executive vice president of Posiva (since July 2009). In this role he gives advice to company's president and participates in the work of the board of directors. Mr Äikäs continues his involvement in engineering but has also a more extensive role as the process owner of the RTD-process (research, development and technical design).