Europe

Neutral Sweden Quietly Keeps Nuclear Option Open

Thursday, November 24, 1994

In the Stockholm suburb of Agesta, a small rock hillock rises amid pine forests and horse farms. It might be just another playground for Scandinavian climbers but for one startling feature: Protruding from the top of the mound, like a missile peeking from a silo, is the conical tip of a nuclear reactor cooling tower.

Thirty years ago, this 65-megawatt reactor buried 50 yards deep and capable of sizable plutonium production was a key component of a vigorous Swedish program to develop a nuclear bomb option, a project that at its Cold War height secretly employed 350 scientists and technicians at the Defense Ministry.

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How safe if SAFE?

Saturday, August 27, 1994

A plan to upgrade two nuclear reactors in Solvakia may force Western governments to stop dithering over nuclear safety in Eastern Europe.

Ever since the reactor at Chernobyl exploded in 1986 spewing radioactivity over more than 20 countries, Europeans have lived in fear of another large-scale nuclear disaster. That fear grew when the Iron Curtain fell, revealing the full extent of the problems with nuclear plants in the former Eastern bloc. It also fuelled a fierce debate: should Soviet-designed reactors be shut down or could they be made 'safe'?

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Lucens reactor site may return to public use

Wednesday, August 9, 1989

Swiss voters in the region of the dismantled Lucens reactor have passed a proposal to return the site to civilian use. Lucens, Switzerland's first nuclear plant, was permanently shut down only one month after it began operation, after a partial fuel meltdown in 1969. The unit was an 8.5-MWe gas-cooled heavy-water reactor.

Residents of the canton (state) of Vaud approved a proposal for the final phase of decommissioning, ending the legal obligations to monitor the site.

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