(560.5361) WISE Amsterdam - The closure of Barsebäck-1 was a great victory for the anti-nuclear movement. The Swedish people voted in a 1980 referendum to phase out nuclear power, but it was not until 1999 that Barsebäck-1 became the first reactor to be shut down under this phaseout (see WISE News Communique 514.5050, " Sweden's phase-out: Reality at last?" and 522, "In Brief"). The Swedish phaseout of nuclear energy is still on the cards but the last reactor closure date of 2010 was dropped in a 1997 energy revision by Parliament.
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IT'S TIME TO HELP OUR FINNISH FRIENDS! |
Barsebäck is only 20 kilometers from Copenhagen in Denmark, and the Danish anti-nuclear organization OOA had run a campaign over many years to shut both Barsebäck reactors. After Denmark had decided not to build any nuclear power stations, and Barsebäck's shutdown was confirmed, OOA wound itself up, its mission accomplished. OOA was responsible for the "Smiling Sun" badges, whose sales enabled the WISE network to be set up back in 1977 (see WISE News Communique 499-500).
For Barsebäck-2 the situation is less clear. When the Swedish parliament decided to retract the order to close the reactor by 1 July 2002, no replacement closure date was specified. Instead, there will be a review of Sweden's energy needs and the closure date of Barsebäck-2 will be set based upon the outcome of the review.
The closure date has been repeatedly postponed, and although the parliament has now said that closure should be possible by the end of 2003, this is only a recommendation. Likewise, the conditions that the parliament set for the reactor's closure - sufficient domestic electricity supply to meet Sweden's needs, a guarantee that electricity prices will not increase because of the shutdown and assurance of no negative environmental effects - are not binding on the government. The loss-making reactor continues to operate while the government prevaricates (see WISE News Communique 545.5259, " 'Yes-and-No' - A winning strategy to preserve Sweden's nuclear industry?").
Meanwhile, according to industry journal Nucleonics Week, the morale of Barsebäck workers is low after the closure of the first reactor, which they had nicknamed "Sofia". The final "spent" fuel assemblies were loaded onto the transport ship M/S Sigyn in December 2001, and operators must come to terms with the fact that the reactor has now been shut down for good. They consider it unjust that the reactor was shut down after 26 years' operation when utilities in many countries hope to run their reactors for 40 years or more.
They must also make plans for decommissioning Barsebäck. Staff have already visited Chernobyl, Greifswald in eastern Germany and Ignalina in Lithuania in order to see how other countries decommission old reactors. However, further plans to visit German reactors have been cancelled following the 11 September terrorist attacks in the USA.
Source: Nucleonics Week, 13 December 2001
Contact: WISE Stockholm
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