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.
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