The government proposal on nuclear power improves the forest industry's operating conditions in Finland, according to the Finnish Forest Industries Federation. When increasing the share of bioenergy, it is extremely important to safeguard the forest industry's raw material supply.“The Government's stance on the building of more nuclear power will, when implemented, lead to an improvement in the forest industry's operating and investment prerequisites in Finland. Building more nuclear power provides the forest industry with the ingredients for developing diverse processing operations and increasing the utilisation of forest energy,” said Finnish Forest Industries Federation Chairman, Kari Jordan, CEO of Metsäliitto.The production volumes and electricity consumption of the forest industry's competitive units will grow over the long term in spite of the ongoing structural change. Forest industry corporations estimate that they will require 27-28 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2020, that is as much as they consumed before the onset of the recession.The forest industry's grid electricity need will also grow in the future, because increasing the value-added input and the manufacture of new products will lead to a rise in electricity consumption. If three to five biorefineries are built in Finland, they will together consume 1.5-2.5 terawatt-hours of grid electricity annually.“It is extremely important that the forest industry's raw material supply is safeguarded in the follow-up drafting of bioenergy subsidy decisions as promised by the Government. Subsidies must not steer processable wood into combustion,” Kari Jordan underlined."The government's political decision on nuclear power is positive. On the other hand, the government's package to support renewable energy production invokes serious concerns for the availability and price of wood biomass," commented UPM's CEO, Jussi Pesonen.