Investigate the Safety of Norwegian Nuclear Reactors – NRK Oslo and Viken – Local News, TV and Radio

The Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority has announced that it will carry out an inspection of the nuclear reactor in Halden next week.

– We cannot rule out that the Halden reactor has safety problems now, or has had them before. This means we need to look at this more closely, says Director Per Strand of the Directorate for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (DSA).

This spring, research pitfalls were revealed at the Halden Nuclear Power Plant. In at least four cases in the 1990s and early 2000s, researchers had manipulated the results when working for clients abroad.

Using well-concealed methods, employees at the Department of Energy Technology (IFE), among other things, changed the temperature and pressure measurements to make them appear more favorable than they actually were.

The disclosure came after a whistleblower first contacted IFE management. They hired Kvamme Associates to conduct an internal investigation. They concluded that the manipulation was carried out on projects delivered to large nuclear power customers in Japan, Canada, the United States and France.

Now it turns out that the manipulation may have been more extensive than previously thought.

Go for an inspection next week

From what NRK understands, it is the way some of the experiments have been carried out that may have posed a security risk.

Strand emphasizes that it is too early to conclude, but is eager for more information.

– The data that was tampered with may have had an effect on the reactor. But it is still uncertain. This means that we care even more about the results and findings and therefore conduct inspections, says Strand.

As early as last summer, the DSA opened a supervisory case and announced that it would closely monitor the investigation through an ongoing audit. They have constantly asked for more information and especially the IFE to provide information on whether tampering has affected safety in Norwegian reactors or in foreign reactors. DSA believes IFE has cooperated.

Despite the decision to shut down the reactor, it is still defined as active and fully staffed. Therefore, the DSA not only deals with old cases, but also with the current situation.

– We have a very low threshold before entering and assessing what consequences this has had, what periods of time we are talking about and if it still presents any risk, he says.

May have tampered with until 2016

One of the new cases now under scrutiny by investigators occurred in 2015/2016, according to DSA.

While IFE’s own experts have previously stated that tampering never threatened the safety of the Halden reactor, Per Strand’s director of radiation protection is no longer so convinced.

– We have worked more with this claim and asked IFE to detail it. We have not given in to such a statement at the beginning of the process. We thought there was a database that was failing to do it, says Strand.

Ecocrime has also been notified, but they have not yet decided whether to initiate a police investigation.

Believe the reactor is safe today

IFE communications director Silje Hole says they see the announcement that DSA will come in for a new audit as a natural continuation of the work that has been done over the past year.

He doesn’t think his own experts concluded too quickly when they ruled out that the tampering could have had consequences for the safety of the Halden reactor. She explains this by saying that the evaluation was on the four cases where tampering was confirmed.

However, there has been more information about new cases in recent months.

– At the end of the investigation, information about three new conditions arrived. These three conditions are still under investigation, including an assessment of whether they may have had consequences for the safety of the reactor, Hole says.

– Is the Halden reactor safe today?

– Yes, we have no reason to believe it is safe. It is kept at the rate required to keep the reactor operating safely, he says.