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clear power plants during environmental impact assessments. Images referred to in
this paper are available in publication and for download (see list of references).
The consultant's long-standing expertise in energy consultancy provides com-
panies with a certain set of proven practices. Presentations of assessments are thus
rather similar across nuclear power projects. The consultant, for instance, suggests
participatory elements for the assessment, and advises on the write-up of the re-
port. Assessment reports of all three companies present an identical structure to
the reader. Each report introduces a separate project logo. All issues are published
in several languages and they look highly professional. Full-page aesthetic pic-
tures require much of the publications' length. In Fortum's environmental impact
assessment report (2008) there are 30 full-page photographs taken by a local pho-
tographer. Throughout the assessment procedure, visual presentations of the pro-
posed project are distributed by the developer in environmental impact assessment
programmes and reports, newspapers, leaflets, websites, exhibitions and oral pres-
entations. With the help of computer software, the new unit or plant is fitted into
photographs (aerials) of the considered site. Production of (manipulated) images,
printing and binding costs must be considerably high, and are thus only affordable
to major companies (cf. Al-Kodmany 1999; Lange 2001).
The reader of these publications is confronted with a peaceful, beautiful,
healthy environment and happy people (see especially Fennovoima's online pres-
entation). It is suggested that nuclear power facilitates protect nature without re-
strictions to comforts and living standards. The look of programmes and reports
often resembles that of a sales magazine. A member of Finland's Green Party
called the efforts of one developer concerning an earlier project a “commercial
blitz” (Andersson 2002, p. 81).
In regard to project simulation, manipulated images look highly realistic and
the observer is encouraged to imagine the effects of project implementation. Usu-
ally the picture shows the completed power plant from the sea side, from a bird's
eye perspective. All developers provide pictures of candidate sites in summer
time, decorated by clear blue skies. The horizon is visible in the picture, as is a
wide area of the sea, and the power plant itself takes up only a little part of the
whole image. The bird's eye perspective comes close to features of maps or GPS,
and therefore enables an almost holistic view of the scene. However, for assessing
the impacts of project implementation this view is also restrictive. It does not, for
instance, allow an assessment of heights, and it is not clear how much of the plant
is visible from different perspectives on the ground or at sea level. Fennovoima
(2008, pp. 240ff.) is the only company to provide one additional picture for each
candidate site where the power plant is simulated from a sea level perspective.
Further, the presentation of the completed plant in summer time does not allow an
assessment of effects of discharges into the sea water and thus effects on sea ice
and fishing, nor does it allow an assessment of the visual landscape with leafless
trees and snow on the ground. In general, many of the issues residents are con-
cerned about are hard to imagine with the help of a manipulated photograph, such
as increases in traffic, presence of around two thousand foreign workers, changes
in the municipality's image and identity, and increasing municipal dependency on
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