Sweden Puts Forward Proposals To Allow Up To 10 New Units
Written by NucNet
Friday, 19 February 2010
The Swedish government has put forward a draft law that would allow the construction of a maximum 10 new nuclear units in the country to replace existing units as they are shut down.
The proposed law scraps a previous ban against building new nuclear reactor units, revoking a 1980 referendum decision to phase out nuclear energy.
Any new reactors would be built on the three current nuclear plant sites in Sweden, which has 10 reactor units in commercial operation.
It would be up to the power companies to decide on the size of the new reactors. The draft law does not put any limit on the size.
The draft law also proposes quadrupling the sum owners of nuclear reactors should pay in damages in case of an accident.
At present reactor owners are obliged to cover costs of up to 3 billion kronor (about 415 million US dollars, 233 million euro), but the sum would be increased to 12 billion kronor, according to the government's proposal.
The government said reactor owners should sign up to a mutual insurance system, noting that this is in place in other countries.
Other options included that the company has to show it has sufficient securities. These would be reviewed by the National Debt Office.
Further, the proposal states that “all assets in a company” could be used to cover the damages.
The proposed law is to be reviewed by the Council on Legislation, which is mainly composed of judges from the Supreme Court and Supreme Administrative Court, before being sent to parliament.
It could become law on 1 August 2010, although the energy spokesman for the opposition Social Democratic Party said yesterday that the red-green coalition – the Social Democratic Party, Left Party and the Green Party – still wants to phase out nuclear power and if it wins a September 2010 general election would abolish the new law.
