Swedish nuclear watchdog to supervise nuclear plant (Roundup)

Jul 8, 2009, 15:06 GMT

Stockholm - A Swedish nuclear watchdog Wednesday decided that a local nuclear power plant should be placed under special supervision, citing a spate of incidents there.

The move was a new setback for state-owned Swedish utility giant Vattenfall that is majority owner of the Ringhals plant that operates four reactors.

Vattenfall also operates reactors in Germany and on Tuesday fired the manager of one of its plants near Hamburg after a short-circuit at the plant over the weekend.

The Swedish government said it will ask Vattenfall to report on what measures the utility aims to put in place following the reports from Sweden and Germany.

Ola Altera, state secretary at the ministry of enterprise, energy and communication, said the government regards the recurring problems with concern.

'We expect Vattenfall to give priority to restore the security culture at its plants,' he added.

The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority said efforts by the operators of the Ringhals plant since 2005 have not been sufficient and had registered at least 'two serious' incidents.

'The agency has on several occasions pointed out deficiencies that have been followed by measures from Ringhals, but the problems still remain,' said Leif Karlsson of the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority's department for reactor safety.

The nuclear watchdog cited weaknesses in how routines and instructions were adhered to.

The shortcomings were however not sufficient to prevent the restart of the reactors at the Ringhals plant, and the operator was to report back to the watchdog latest by November.

The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority introduced similar special supervision of the Forsmark nuclear facility, north of Stockholm, after the shutdown of one of the three reactors in July 2006.

Subsequent probes brought into question safety procedures at Forsmark, and reports indicated problems with reporting and follow-up of maintenance.

In April this year, the operators of Forsmark were allowed to operate the plant without special supervision.

Sweden once had as many as 12 nuclear reactors in operation, but two reactors at the Barseback plant in southern Sweden have been decommissioned, most recently in May 2005.

The ruling Swedish centre-right government recently announced it would revoke a 1980 referendum decision to phase out nuclear power, which accounts for about half of the country's electricity.

The government opened for replacing the current 10 reactors with new reactors, citing the debate about climate change and need to secure long-term energy production.