Stockholm - Two of Sweden's 10 nuclear reactors were to be offline for at least a month as checks continued on the control rods used to control the nuclear fission process, officials said Monday. The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority last week ordered operators to check the control rods after cracks were detected in the control rods at one of the three reactors at the Oskarhamn nuclear plant, south-eastern Sweden.
Reactor Number 3 at the Oskarshamn plant was due to be back online December 3, Oskarhamn, spokeswoman Annika Carlsson told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
The other two reactors at Oskarshamn were operating normally since they had a different design, she said.
The plant is operated by energy groups E.ON of Germany and Finland's Fortum.
At Forsmark, north of Stockholm one of the three reactors that has the same design as Oskarhmamn 3 has also been offline since last week.
Officials at Forsmark said the reactor was likely to be offline until end of November. Forsmark is majority-owned by state-controlled energy group Vattenfall.
Sweden has operated 12 nuclear reactors at most. Two at the Barseback plant in southern Sweden have been decommissioned, the most recent in May 2005.