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Small cracks have again been detected in control rods used to control the fission process at two nuclear reactors in Sweden, media reports said Wednesday. Cracks were detected last year at one reactor at Forsmark, north of Stockholm, and one reactor at the Oskarshamn plant, in south- eastern Sweden. Several control rods were replaced at the end of the year, but some of the new rods appear to have faults. Chief executive Lars Turing of the Oskarshamn plant told Swedish radio news that the new rods may have been damaged at production, but a probe was underway. Reactor 3, one of three at Oskarshamn, is to remain offline due to maintenance work and the new finds were likely to delay the scheduled start-up in June. The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority said it would review the report from the operators, but did not rule out allowing the reactors to be restarted for a limited time. Sweden operated 12 nuclear reactors at the peak of its nuclear activity. Two at the Barseback plant in southern Sweden have been decommissioned, the most recent in May 2005.

* Swedish govt demands explanation of nuclear problems * Swedish authority says Ringhals plant must boost safety * Says plant has not solved lingering safety concerns (Releads with Swedish government, adds Ringhals comment) By Niklas Pollard STOCKHOLM, July 8 (Reuters) - Sweden demanded on Wednesday that state-owned power utility Vattenfall provide an account of its work on nuclear safety after problems at one of its plants in Germany and security concerns at another in Sweden. The government's request was made after Swedish authorities earlier on Wednesday ordered the utility's majority-owned Ringhals nuclear plant, located south of the city of Gothenburg in south-west Sweden, to take steps to improve safety. The decision by the Nordic country's nuclear watchdog came in the wake of a failed restart of Vattenfall's nuclear plant at Kruemmel, northern Germany, which caused power outages across the city of Hamburg on Saturday.

"Sweden is to build new nuclear power stations in defiance of a 1980 referendum when Swedes voted to phase out atomic power. After a debate in which Sweden's need for climate friendly, low carbon energy clashed with environmental concerns over atomic energy, Swedish MPs narrowly voted to build new nuclear reactor on Thursday night. "A few months ago, the climate threat dominated the environmental debate. Now it is the oil disaster in the Mexican Gulf that is sparking the world's interest and horror," said Andreas Carlgren, the Swedish environment minister during a heated debate. Related Articles * Eight new nuclear power stations planned for England * Warning signs on nuclear power * Honduras lifts overnight curfew * Iran election: 'unprecedented' turnout boosts challenge to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad * Britain's atomic test veterans remember nuclear tests of 1950s * Iran's president opens door to talks with US on nuclear programme "Both are really two sides of the same coin, namely, we must leave the dependency on oil and fossil energy behind." Construction will begin next year to replace the 10 ageing reactors that still produce 40 per cent of Sweden's electricity. But Sweden's centre-Left opposition, currently running neck and neck with the government in opinion polls ahead of elections is September, have vowed to reinstate the ban. "

"In the most "Woody Allen esque" protest I've seen in a while, 50 activists dressed as renewable energy sources (sun, wind, water) used a fire truck to get into one of the dodgiest nuclear plants in Sweden. I'm going in! They want their govenment to follow through on a decades old national referendum to phase out nuclear power. The Swedish parliment will vote this week on whether to stick to the nuclear power phase out, or backslide and open the door to new reactors. Our man in Sweden says: "The Swedish parliament is risking the country's reputation and position as a progressive leader in clean and safe energy development. All the evidence shows that nuclear power is a dangerous, expensive and dead-end distraction from the real solutions to climate protection and energy security. Reactors are standing in the way of energy efficiency and renewable energy programs." -- Ludvig Tillman, energy campaigner for Greenpeace Nordic."

"We are now confronting the problems of nuclear power - the waste generated and the radioactivity of the reactor generators that need to be "decommissioned." Bruce Power will pay Studsvik $1 million for each of the planned 17 generators to be "cleansed" in Sweden. Normally an intelligent country, Sweden is embarking on a process that will harm its workers and proliferate the material throughout its industries. Of course the ship may not run into trouble on its journey through the Great Lakes and across the Atlantic. Retrieving the behemoth from the bottom of the Atlantic would be difficult. It would probably be left there along with the sunken nuclear submarines corroding away."

"Bruce Power is seeking a licence from the Nuclear Safety Commission to transport 1760 tonnes of radioactive steel through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway, passing Cornwall Ontario, on its way overseas. If this plan is approved the 16 used steam generators are going to be shipped to Sweden going through both Canadian and American waters. The transportation of radioactive materials through Canadian waters has some citizens and politicians concerned. Mike Bradley (the Mayor of Sarnia) and Elizabeth May (leader of the Green Party) are both critical of the plan. If the shipment is approved it would set a precedent for transporting radioactive materials through the Great Lakes, and it could create a rubber stamp for these kinds of shipments in the future without public notice or approval. Although a disaster is unlikely, according to environmentalists, a disaster could be truly devastating. The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River represent 20% of the worlds fresh drinking water, drinking water for more than 40 million people. Supporters of Nuclear Energy claim that even if there was a disaster, the damage would be minimal."

Sweden shut down one of its nuclear reactors on Tuesday to check the plant's control rods after cracks were found in the rods at an identical plant, the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (SSM) reports. The agency said it had been alerted last week that a routine annual inspection at the Oskarshamn nuclear plant in eastern Sweden had turned up cracks in Reactor 3's control rods, which are used to control the rate of fission of uranium and plutonium.

"Russia and Sweden have found themselves amid an international scandal stemming from allegations that Russia dumped radioactive waste and chemical weapons into the Baltic Sea in the early 1990s - and that Sweden disregarded later reports of the discharges. Bellona, 15/02-2010 The Russian military are responsible for chemical and radioactive pollution off the coast of the Swedish island of Gotland, the Swedish channel Sveriges Television (SVT) charged in early February. But Russia's prominent environmentalist, academician Alexei Yablokov, who served as an advisor to the late President Boris Yeltsin, and who further would be unflinching in casting stones at the Kremlin for shady radioactive waste dumping practices, told SVT that the allegations are dubious. In a documentary that aired on SVT, journalists quoted the former Swedish secret service officer Donald Forsberg, who said radioactive waste and chemical weapons were being unloaded into the area between 1989 and 1992. The materials buried there at sea had allegedly come from a Soviet military base in Liepaja, Latvia, following the Russians' hurried retreat from that Soviet republic after the break-up of the USSR."

"The conservative government of Sweden, which covers roughly half of its energy requirements with water power and half with nuclear energy, wants to build new nuclear power plants. The daily Dala Demokraten scrutinises the energy debate in the context of the upcoming elections in September: "Nuclear power has been represented as a virtually problem-free power source in the energy and environmental debates of the past few years. Therefore it is not surprising that the number of Swedes who want to use nuclear power has risen. The numerous problems that the use of nuclear power entails have been played down - despite serious incidents."

"Plans to replace worn out reactors postponed after political brawl. The Swedish center-right government has decided to postpone its new strategy on nuclear power - at least until after the general election. The holdup in plans to replace old reactors as they wear out is a response to a key Center Party MP's threat to vote with the opposition on the issue, Swedish Radio News said Wednesday. Nuclear power has for along time been a sensitive political question in Sweden, and maybe even more so today with green energy such as wind and wave power in the swim. In 1980 Sweden voted to phase out nuclear power. But still ten of the country's twelve reactors are still up and running. "

"A court in central Sweden on Thursday handed out fines to 29 Greenpeace activists who broke into a nuclear power plant earlier this month, according to judicial sources. The activists -- 13 Germans, eight Poles, four Danes, a Frenchman, a Finn, a Swede and a Briton -- were given fines ranging from 190 to 1,600 euros (230-2,000 dollars) for trespassing, according to a copy of the judgment by the court in Uppsala obtained by AFP. In a statement, Greenpeace welcomed the fact that activists were found guilty of the lesser charge of trespassing, and not aggravated trespassing as sought by the prosecutor. A Polish activist was also found guilty of a lesser arms law violation for possession of pepper spray, according to the court's decision."

"Police in Sweden arrested dozens of Greenpeace activists on Monday after they broke into the Forsmark nuclear power plant ahead of a planned vote this week on whether to replace the country's existing reactors. World The activists entered Forsmark some 115 kilometers north of Stockholm early on Monday and several gained access to a building rooftop, police said. The protestors did not enter any of the operating areas."

"Critics slam plan, regulators downplay risks The Bruce Nuclear Generating Station plans to ship 1,760 tonnes of radiation-laced steel through Lake Ontario - a precedent-setting project that has officials worried on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border. On April 1, Bruce Power asked the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Canada's nuclear regulator, for a licence to ship low-level radioactive generators from its power plant on Lake Huron to Sweden, where 90 per cent of the metals inside the generators are to be cleansed and resold. The remaining materials that are too radioactive to be recycled will then return to the Bruce plant to be contained for the rest of their radioactive lives. But the planned journey, which would have 16 decommissioned steam generators travel through the Great Lakes, down the St. Lawrence River and then to Sweden this fall, has municipal officials concerned because they haven't been given the chance to vet the proposal. If approved, this would be the first time a licence has been issued by the commission to ship nuclear waste through the Great Lakes."

AN UNPRECEDENTED plan to export radioactive waste from old nuclear submarines in Scotland to Sweden is coming under fire from local authorities worried about accidents and pollution. The naval dockyard at Rosyth in Fife has applied for permission to ship metal contaminated with radioactivity to a smelter near Nyköping in Sweden, run by the nuclear waste company Studsvik. The plan is for the metal, from the decommissioning of seven defunct submarines laid up at Rosyth, to be melted, decontaminated and reused.

One of the world's first permanent nuclear waste storage sites that can house highly radioactive waste for more than 100,000 years will be built in Sweden, project officials said on Wednesday. The waste will be buried in tunnels drilled 500 metres (1,640 feet) underground in the bedrock in Forsmark, near the town of Oesthammar 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of Stockholm, the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB) said. Construction on the cutting-edge site could begin in 2016 and the site could be inaugurated in 2022 or 2024, according to SKB.

"Studsvik of Sweden has signed a contract with Finland's Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) for the dismantling and metal recycling of old steam generators from the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant. Studsvik-steam generator A steam generator for treatment at Studsvik (Image: Studsvik) Studsvik's facility near Nyköping, Sweden, melts metal scrap, such as stainless steel, carbon steel, copper, aluminium or lead. Melting reduces the volume and weight of the waste, resulting in reduced costs for interim on-site storage and final disposal. The end-product is metal ingots, which can either be immediately free-released as conventional scrap metal or released after a period of decay storage. Residual products (slag, sorted material, cutting and blasting residues and dust from the ventilation filters) and ingots that cannot be free-released are returned to the customer."

"Municipal leaders deserve a say in whether radioactive recyclables are ferried through the Welland Canal, says the mayor of St. Catharines. The Bruce Nuclear Generating Station has asked for a licence to ship "low-level" radioactive generators from Lake Huron, through the Welland Canal and the rest of the St. Lawrence Seaway to a recycling plant in Sweden. Each of the 16 bus-sized steam generators contains steel that can be decontaminated and reused, according to Bruce Power officials, but about 10% of the material is thought to be too radioactive to recycle and will be returned to the Lake Huron facility for storage. "

Two men suspected of attempting to sabotage a nuclear plant in southern Sweden have been arrested, police said. Both men were stopped at the entrance to the nuclear plant after traces of explosives were found on a bag. The Oskarshamn plant - owned by German energy giant E.On - has been sealed, the company said.

STOCKHOLM, May 22 (Reuters) - Swedish police said on Thursday they had released two men who had been held on suspicion of planning to sabotage a nuclear power station. Police detained two contract workers on Wednesday after one of them was stopped in a security check at the Oskarshamn nuclear plant, on the southeast coast of Sweden, with traces of a highly explosive material thought to be TATP.

A 61-year-old man died while working on the O3 nuclear reactor at Oskarshamn nuclear power station in southern Sweden on Sunday morning. The man was carrying out maintenance work on reactor, which is temporarily out of service, when a jack broke loose and crashed into the man's chest. The 61-year-old was rushed to hospital in Oskarshamn but was declared dead on arrival. The accident occurred shortly before 5am in the reactor's turbine hall. The police have conducted a technical investigation of the scene and a report has been submitted to the Swedish Work Environment Authority.