The Swedish Nuclear Society Honorary Award

In January 2014, during the annual Elforsk Dinner for the nuclear power industry in Stockholm, the Swedish Nuclear Society (SKS) presented the SKS Honorary Award 2014 to the former Director General of the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority, Lars Högberg. Lars contributed considerably to the establishment of the authority and played an important role in Sweden during the aftermath of the Three Mile Island (TMI) accident when he persuaded key politicians to trust in the Swedish nuclear programme. He was a driving force behind the development and installation of the filtered venting systems at Swedish nuclear power plants. On an international level he served as Governor of the Board of the IAEA and as Chairman of the Steering Committee of the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency.  In recent years, Lars was involved in the creation of a regulatory framework in the United Arab Emirates. In 1991, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.

Recent activities in the Swedish Nuclear Society

In recent months, SKS has organised a number of nuclear related technical tours. In October 2013, the facilities of the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company, in Oskarshamn, were visited. Participants had a close look at the interim storage facility (CLAB), the Äspö Hard Rock Laboratory - located 500 m underground - and the bentonite clay laboratory.

In November 2013, a group of more than 20 SKS members gathered in Malmö, in the south of Sweden, for an ‘anecdotic dinner’ with Emil Bachofner, a former nuclear safety specialist at Studsvik and OKG. During the dinner Emil shared with the group his memories of the time when the Marviken nuclear power plant was being built. The following day the group visited the Barsebäck nuclear power plant, which is under decommissioning, and the office of the European Spallation Source (ECC) in Lund.

In January 2014, a group of about 20 SKS members met for dinner in Gothenburg. The dinner was preceded by a visit of the nuclear fuel chemistry laboratory of Chalmers Technical University. The next day the group travelled to Halden, in Norway, where they saw the Halden experimental reactor and the Hammlab MTO laboratory.