Nuclear power, wave power, wind power and nuclear waste management are all very interesting subjects and something that all of us Swedish trainees would like to explore further. Therefore we went on a small study tour within Sweden. The trip was not organized by the trainee program but something we organized by ourselves.

The first day we went to Ringhals nuclear power plant. The first stop was at the information center where we were allowed to hold a uranium pellet. Secondly we visited the reactor hall at Ringhals 1, which is a reactor of a model called boiling water reactor.

Early in the morning of the second day we travelled by car to Lysekil to visit Seabased, which is company that are researching and developing wave power. At Seabased we were given a lot of information and saw some of the plants that later would be placed into the sea. I did not know that much about wave power before so it was interesting to learn about the basics.

After a quick lunch we continued our journey to Brålanda where we visited a wind power station. We climbed the whole way up to the top which was an amazing experience. The wind power station was 107 meters high, so it was a bit of an exercise to climb the whole way up. From the top we had a remarkable view and it was very exciting to see what the mill looked like from the inside and get to know more about how it functions.

On our third day we visited SKB: s facilities in Oskarshamn. SKB is an abbreviation for Svensk Kärnbränslehantering AB (Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company). There we visited Canister laboratory and Äspö hard rock laboratory, two research labs which focus on nuclear fuel management and Clab, the Swedish interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. I did my master thesis within radioactive waste management and I have earlier during the trainee program done an assignment at SFR (Swedish: Slutförvaret för kortlivat radioaktivt avfall, English: Final repository for short-lived radioactive waste). Radioactive waste management is a subject that I am very interesting in so it was great to have the opportunity to visit the facilities in Oskarshamn. I would like to thank everyone who have helped and guided us on our study tour. It was three extraordinary days!

This week I did something very interesting. I did something that we at Ringhals call ”skiftlagspraktik” which means a shorter training period in the control room at one of the nuclear reactors. It was very nice to see how it works in reality and see many of the different objects and processes that I read about in my daily work. I was at Ringhals unit 3 which is a reactor of a model called pressurized water reactor. In the control room you control and regulate the processes in the plant. I tried many different duties for example daily controls, both in the control room and in the actual plant, and periodic tests of different systems. This is done to make sure that everything works as planned and that different safety systems are functionable if they are needed. All controls and tests worked out as planned and were under control. I worked with a nice and friendly team and their running of the power plant felt very safe. One of the most exciting experiences was that I, under supervision and instructions from an experienced reactor operator, was allowed to participate in a routinely regulation of the boric acid concentration. Boric acid absorbs the neutrons that are used in the fission process. By regulating the concentration you can control the number of fissions of uranium that occur. If you decrease the boric acid concentration you will receive more fissions of uranium. This means that more heat is released and that the reactor temperature is increased. By doing this I have actually run and regulated a nuclear reactor. It might sound a little bit geeky but how many people have actually been able to do that?