Sweden shuts down atomic reactor

V

Valleyman

Veteran XX
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4595631.stm
Sweden has closed its Barseback 2 nuclear reactor. two years behind schedule, and 25 years after Swedes voted to stop using atomic energy.

Danes celebrated the shutdown, as Barseback lies just across the Baltic Sea from their capital, Copenhagen.

Sweden took the decision to phase out nuclear power in 1980, when anti-nuclear protest was at its peak.

However, concerns about global warming have led many to reconsider the case for nuclear energy.

Although Denmark remains nuclear free, Sweden's northern neighbour Finland is building its fifth nuclear reactor, due to come online in 2009.

The Swedish state company Vattenfall, which runs Barseback, says it will invest SEK8bn ($1.09bn) to build the biggest wind farm in northern Europe.

It hopes it will produce two terawatt hours per year from 2010. Barseback produced double that, and Sweden used 148 terawatts hours last year.

A third of Barseback's 348 employees will keep their jobs for the time being, and the plant will not be knocked down until at least 2020.

Price rises

Recent polls should some 80% of Swedes say they want to keep nuclear power, which covers half of the country's electricity needs.

Barseback nuclear reactor in Sweden
The majority of Swedes say they fear they will have to import energy from carbon dioxide-emitting coal and gas power plants elsewhere in Europe, as a result of energy shortages.

There have also been warnings that power costs are on course for sharp rises.

"There is a lack of electricity in the Nordic market and this will only contribute to that," Kalle Lindholm, spokesman for Sweden's power industry group Swedenergy, told Reuters news agency.

But the authorities say measures to increase energy from renewable sources to replace the capacity lost through the closure of Barseback 1 and 2 have been completed.

In the 1980 referendum, people voted on three alternative ways of phasing out nuclear power - the vote gave no option to continue nuclear energy.

As a result, Barseback 1 was closed in 1999.
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Better late than never I guess, although 25 years is quiet a long time.
 
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Earlier referenda voted to keep left-hand-side driving, but we still changed it to right-hand side. Now that Barsebäck has been closed down, we're forced to IMPORT power from coal power plants abroad, or nuclear power from Finland. Where's the logic in that?
 
Where's the logic in spending time on an interweb forum telling other people how much they're wasting their time?
 
I'd rather be posting on a forum at 4am while I try to fall asleep instead of being married to a woman 30 years older than me
 
piotrr said:
Earlier referenda voted to keep left-hand-side driving, but we still changed it to right-hand side. Now that Barsebäck has been closed down, we're forced to IMPORT power from coal power plants abroad, or nuclear power from Finland. Where's the logic in that?
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I wish I was alive to see Dagen H (Högertrafik), would be funny to just see cars stop where they were for 10 minutes and then drive to the other side of the road. But it made sense because all out neighbours drive on the right, I also remember reading in school that driving on the right gives better view of the road ahead :shrug:
 
Interesting story. It caught my eye a few days ago. I was particularly interested in the bit on the wind farms. Would it be feasible for Sweden to build more wind farms (aside from the one in the works) to supplement its energy needs? I don't know much on the subject, but I can only imagine Sweden is among the world leaders in renewable energy. What other projects do you Swedes have cooking?
 
Valleyman said:
The last wind farm I visitied killed a massive amount of birds per day it was in the hundreds they were on the ground everywhere.
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:sick:

and denmark isnt very nice with windmills pretty much everywhere
(and its not those cool dutch windmills either :D)
 
I don't get it:

It hopes it will produce two terawatt hours per year from 2010. Barseback produced double that, and Sweden used 148 terawatts hours last year.
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The best case scenario is half what they used to have. Yeah, this is surely going to balance out. I can already see the nobel prize winning solution for this...lol

Aye, it's not funny really. We let the green party in the government (the only way to keep the big right wing party out of the government is by including every other party, except for the communists) and in not even a full therm they not only succeeded to stop the use of nuclear powersources. (in the future) The space that plant occupies atm is beeing expanded to fit a huge harbor connection. (whole village beeing disowned for that)

Thank god they put this little clause in it saying "only if there is an alternative with the same capacity".

When will they learn that windfarms are ugly, expensive and inefficient?
You have to spend billions on building new wind turbines (which is not environment friendly either), they break alot. You always need a backup for when, for some reason, they don't work. This backup also happens to be natures little friend called coil/oil. One time you have to give energy away free b/c you can't store what ppl ain't using and the other time you got to buy energy from a neighbour country for big $$.

That and power lines/plants have to be upgraded/adapted because wind-energy gives large fluctuations.

It would be alot cheaper and more efficient to insulate houses better and upgrade/renew powerstations.
 
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as an energy economist, i can say anyone against nuclear energy doesn't know wtf they are talking about
 
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