Nuclear power looms as Swedish election issue

By Lennart Simonsson Aug 4, 2006, 12:04 GMT

Stockholm - With four of Sweden's 10 nuclear reactors shut down over security reviews Friday, anti-nuclear parties moved to cash in politically on the issue ahead of elections due September 17.

The Left Party that has backed the ruling minority Social Democrats demanded that one reactor should be decommissioned before the next general elections slated in 2010.

'I believe it is quite possible,' party leader Lars Ohly told the Stockholm newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, citing alternative energy sources like wind power and bio-energy.

'Until I am proved wrong, I will raise this demand in talks' with the Social Democrats, he said, adding the Left Party wanted to phase out nuclear power by 2025.

The Green Party, which also backs the government, said it wants a a faster phase out of nuclear power that provides about half of the country's electricity.

Observers doubted, however, that the nuclear issue would dominate the campaign, citing surveys that voters were more concerned about healthcare, welfare and education.

Environment Minister Lena Sommestad said the government was continually reviewing the issue, and seeking other energy options but the incident last week at the Forsmark nuclear power plant was 'no reason to be too hasty.'

Meanwhile, the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate (SKI) said it was reviewing reports from the operators of the two plants where four reactors have been taken offline.

The security reviews and shutdowns were ordered after two of four backup generators at Forsmark, 75 kilometres north of Stockholm, malfunctioned after the reactor shut down. Technicians investigating the fault believed it was linked to electricity supply from the network.

Two reactors at the Oskarshamn facility in southeastern Sweden were also taken offline as part of reviews of the systems.

The Forsmark incident triggered demands for an independent review of nuclear safety, and environmental group Greenpeace called for an immediate shutdown of all Swedish nuclear reactors.

Nuclear power has been a charged political issue in Sweden since the 1970s, and triggered the collapse of one non-socialist coalition government in that decade.

Earlier this year, the SOM Institute at Gothenburg University reported that half of the 9 million Swedes favoured that the country's 10 nuclear reactors should remain in use while 33 per cent were against, and 17 per cent were undecided.

Some 3,000 voters were polled during the autumn 2005 and winter of 2006. It was the first time since SOM started its nationwide polls in 1986 that a majority favoured keeping nuclear power.

Fredrik Reinfeldt, leader of the traditionally pro-nuclear Conservative Party, on Friday urged Prime Minister Goran Persson to clarify his stance on the nuclear issue.

Reinfeldt's party is one of four non-socialist parties that have formed an alliance hoping to replace the Social Democrats in office.

In June they announced a deal on an energy programme for the coming four-year period. The current 10 reactors would continue to operate, but no new reactors would be built either, the alliance said, hoping to defuse the divisive issue.

Sweden operated 12 nuclear rectors at most. Two at the Barseback plant in southern Sweden have been decommissioned, most recently in May 2005.

A 1980 referendum decided Sweden would phase out nuclear power.