Attempting to put an end to further escalation of nuclear power, the Center Party wrote the so-called "Stipulation Act" ("Villkorslagen") which was passed by the Swedish Parliament in April 1977. At that time six reactors were operating (Oskarshamn 1 and 2, Barsebäck 1 and 2, and Ringhals 1 and 2), two reactors were nearing completion (Forsmark 1 and Ringhals 3), while work had not yet begun on two additional reactors (Forsmark 3 and Oskarshamn 3).
According to the Stipulation Act, the proprietor of a reactor has to meet one of two conditions before its reactor can start operating. The Act reads as follows:
"Operating permission is to be granted only if the reactor owner:
- has established a contract for reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, and, further, has proven how and where a completely safe final storage facility can be constructed for the highly radioactive waste, or
- has proven how a completely safe final storage facility for spent, unreprocessed nuclear fuel will be constructed and where it will be located."
Without question these severe conditions should have served to prohibit more reactors from reaching operational status. In fact, it is presently technically impossible to achieve a "completely safe final storage".
The motives for passing the Stipulation Act have been intensely debated. The basic philosophy of the law is to prevent the production of waste, unless final storage has been provided for. The environmental movement shares this philosophy. Had the law been put into practice, this would have meant a victory.
The Stipulation Act put strong pressure on the nuclear industry to try and figure out either how to handle the waste safely or to convince the decision makers that they had done so, in order to obtain permission to start operating new reactors. The consequence of this was that difficulties were belittled, problems ignored, objections and criticisms left for the future, while poorly substantiated claims were confidently broadcast.
The nuclear industry interpreted the Stipulation Act as requiring that the reactor owner had to prove the existence of bedrock sufficient for waste storage at a depth of 500 meters. To gain such proof, 500 meter deep shafts would have to be dug and several tunnels drilled at the 500 meter level. Geologists would then either find fissures or otherwise unsuitable rock, or prove, for the site in question, that a sufficient amount of suitable rock really existed. Such a process would take several years, and the industry didn't want to wait that long. With pressure being exerted because new reactors were ready to start, the waste issue was transformed. It became not a question of fulfilling the Stipulation Act but of circumventing it with silent, official consent.
Through their common company, SKBF, the nuclear power companies launched the "Nuclear Fuel Safety Project" ("Projekt Kärnbränslesäkerhet", or KBS). In November 1977, after only nine months, a waste storage proposal called KBS-1 was submitted to the Government, based on the assumption that the spent fuel would be reprocessed. SKBF stated that the proposal fulfilled the Stipulation Act. In actuality they elaborated on the proposal of the AKA Commission concerning reprocessing, encapsulation and final storage under 500 meters of bedrock. The KBS-1 method did not deal with the total quantity of waste. The documentation did not state what would be done with the plutonium, which simply was not defined as waste. Consequently the plutonium was not understood to be a waste by either the nuclear companies, supervisory authorities, or politicians.
The proposal was first submitted to a number of agencies for consideration, in Sweden as well as abroad. It was severely criticized on almost every detail. Among the items singled out for heaviest criticism was the fact that no bedrock fulfilled the conditions set by KBS-1.
As the day of the Government's decision about KBS-1 approached, the two parties in favor of nuclear power (Conservative and Liberal) collaborated behind the Center Party's back. Secretly, Anders Wijkman (Conservative) and Carl Tham (then Liberal) planned with a member of the nuclear power establishment (Ingvar Wivstad from the KBS project) to produce a proposal which, on September 29, 1978, was officially not accepted by the Government, but in practice was. That is, the Government accepted all points in the plan except one that they characterized as "minor".
At the press conference announcing the decision, Prime Minister Thorbjörn Fälldin (Center) was severely attacked by journalists who believed he had again capitulated. While Thorbjörn Fälldin wiped sweat from his brow and got wrapped up in complicated explanations, a relaxed and smiling Gösta Bohman (Conservative leader) contended that the new reactors were now 99% ready to start.
On the evening of the press conference, members of the Center Party from all over the country attacked the party leadership who then realized that they had been swindled by their coalition partners in the Government. As a consequence, the three-party Government was dissolved and succeeded by a Liberal Government.
What hadn't been solved (the "1%", according to Gösta Bohman's vocabulary) was proof of suitable bedrock. Everything else had been accepted by the Government, which in doing so also disclaimed responsibility for the rock's suitability. This responsibility, the so-called "political bore holes", fell to SKI after the test drilling program had been completed. Quite correctly SKI observed that they lacked geological know-how.
A special group of geologists was appointed to the task of supervising the drilling operations. Seven of the eight participating geologists concluded that the test holes showed that the Sternö bedrock in southeast Sweden was not suitable. Nonetheless, the board of SKI, made up mostly of politicians, ruled by majority that the KBS-1 application satisfied the demands of the Stipulation Act concerning a completely safe storage area. The board of SKI wrote:
"The importance of the rock barrier must not be exaggerated provided that the other barriers are functioning to satisfaction."
As if not to go completely against their own group of geologists, SKI approved a part of the Sternö bedrock where no test holes had been drilled. Everywhere else the holes had proved the existence of fissures, whereas the KBS-1 proposal required a fissure-free bedrock. Where no test holes had been drilled, no fissures had been observed.
The actions of the Center Party during this period were contradictory. They had initiated the severe Stipulation Act but then were obviously not prepared to go to battle for their own interpretation of the law. Even worse, in September 1978, when the final decision was made that the bedrock issue had to be handled by SKI, not the Government, the Center Party abandoned their own continued influence on the issue for the sake of peace in the Government. Within the SKI board there was only one person from the Center Party, against five from the pro-nuclear parties. Maybe the leaders of the Center Party thought that politicians within the board of a regulatory authority would not behave as normal politicians who follow the party line.
Although the leaders of the Center Party possibly believed that they could stop the start-up of new reactors, the other parties in the Government (Conservative and Liberal) knew that the KBS managers were completely satisfied with the Government decision. The Conservatives and Liberals had in fact secretly, without knowledge of the Center Party, agreed with the KBS managers about the conditions of the decision.
KBS-1 was followed in 1978 by KBS-2, which dealt with the direct final storage of spent nuclear fuel without reprocessing. In principle, the solution was the very same, placing containers of fuel under 500 meters of bedrock. Nevertheless, the KBS-2 design was sent out for international review. Due to weeding out of the most critical agencies, many of the objections that had put KBS-1 in a bad light were dropped. Of the 23 foreign authorities involved in consideration of KBS-1, only six were used for the analysis of KBS-2. It is no surprise that many of the most forceful critics were not consulted a second time. KBS-2 was never used in legal decision making.
In June 1979, the new Liberal Government formally approved the KBS-1 method, stating that KBS-1 fulfilled the Stipulation Act. Shortly thereafter, the strongly sought license to fuel Sweden's seventh reactor was granted. The requirement that waste storage be completely safe for thousands of years had been devalued to "safe enough" for starting another six reactors, and the "KBS Affair" was history. Unfortunately, such political manipulation is not an isolated incident in modern Sweden. Bofors, the Swedish weapons manufacturing company located in Karlskoga, was discovered in 1987 to be extensively trading weapons with India by bribing Indian officials. Bofors also smuggled weapons to middle eastern countries via Singapore. The smuggling took place right in front of passive regulatory authorities within and outside of the Swedish Government. The KBS and Bofors affairs seem to point towards scandals of this kind occurring regularly (18).
However, in a strictly legal sense the Stipulation Act was not violated by the Government decision to approve KBS-1. The Government had the right to make the decision as to what was "safe", and is the highest interpreter of laws of this kind. The fact is that the KBS-1 method did not meet the conditions of the Stipulation Act. Regardless, the Stipulation Act was not essential for the formal approval of KBS-1. The question is if the true reality or the Government approved, formal, reality is valid?
In 1982, the Social Democrats were re-elected to power. To exculpate themselves, they abolished the Stipulation Act, and the licenses given earlier according to the Act were changed! Instead, the meek Act On Nuclear Activities ("Kärntekniklagen") was passed, which deals with nuclear technology as a whole. This law puts no serious demands on the nuclear industry. Concerning the high-level waste problem, the new law requires that research on waste disposal be carried out, and that if the Government finds the research promising, the reactor owner may continue to produce wastes. This decision is to be re-examined every third year starting in 1987. Considering that much of the serious criticism has been deliberately omitted, this "reconsideration" will become more of a formality than a real examination.
Since the KBS method existed only in theory, and it was preferred not to store the growing quantities of spent fuel at the reactor sites, the Government decided in 1980 to build The Central Storage Facility For Spent Nuclear Fuel (CLAB). This large cavern, about 30 meters underground, is located at the Oskarshamn nuclear reactor site. The spent fuel from all the reactors will be transported to CLAB after being stored at the reactor sites from six months to a year. According to SKB, CLAB cost US$250 million to build and has an annual operating cost of US$10 million (19).
CLAB began operating in 1985 and is expected to be used for 40 years, prior to "final disposal" at a yet undetermined site (20). It has an underground wet storage capacity of 3,000 tonnes of spent fuel in four pools, and room for expansion. By January 1987, more than 400 tonnes of spent fuel were stored in CLAB (21).
The decision making process for CLAB was the same as that for KBS, and SFR-1 (explained in Chapter 8). That is, SKB made the proposal and the Government approved it without seriously considering criticism. Further, there is no doubt that CLAB was approved to reduce the pressure to find a "permanent" storage method.
In May 1983, when Oskarshamn 3 and Forsmark 3 were nearing operational status, the nuclear industry presented KBS-3, a more comprehensive version of KBS-2 aimed at direct disposal without reprocessing. The disposal facility became known as the "Final Repository For High-level And Long-lived Waste", shortened in Swedish to "SFL".
When the KBS-3 design was sent out for review, critics of nuclear power demanded that the reviewers which had been excluded between KBS-1 and 2 be included again. However, the Government excluded even more reviewers. The excuse given by the Energy Minister was that the Government was already familiar with the criticisms of the earlier KBS methods, which would be taken into consideration. SKI was commissioned to put together the documents giving the basis for approval of KBS-3. But SKI did not consider earlier criticisms, despite the Energy Minister's assurances. KBS-3 was approved and the last two reactors were given permission to start fueling in June 1984.
In summary, the KBS affair is a scandal in the Swedish administration at the highest level. The scandal brought down one government and caused the public to mistrust the regulatory agency SKI. After 15 years of investigations, the country has been put in a position where there is no reliable authority to take care of spent nuclear fuel. But for the nuclear power companies, the Stipulation Act and the KBS method in versions one and three fulfilled their task; permission was given for fueling and operation of new reactors. The reactors that received fueling permission based on KBS-1 in 1979 were Forsmark 1 and Ringhals 3. Later, KBS-1 was also used to give fueling permission to Forsmark 2 and Ringhals 4. Permission to fuel Forsmark 3 and Oskarshamn 3 were based on KBS-3. Licenses to operate all nuclear reactors are now based on KBS-3 and the Act On Nuclear Activities.
In medieval times the church decided the Earth was flat. In the same way, the Swedish Government decided in 1979 that the nuclear waste issue was solved. The church decision eventually had to be changed.
The madness connected with the Stipulation Act of course resulted in widespread protest. But in the same way as the servants and supporters of the medieval church could not accept the truth about the Earth, all newspapers connected to the pro-nuclear parties (Conservative, Liberal, and Social Democratic) could not admit the swindle. Or rather, they didn't want to admit it.
In other words, the majority of the ruling politicians and most of the mass media thought it acceptable to tamper with the law for "a good cause". Because, otherwise, the new reactors wouldn't have been able to start.