Vattenfall's image tarnished

HAMBURG, Germany, July 10 (UPI) -- The reputation of Swedish energy giant Vattenfall has been tarnished by a series of incidents at nuclear plants all over Europe.

Vattenfall has a PR problem after several incidents at its nuclear power stations. Tuomo Hatakka, the head of Vattenfall Europe, called them a "bitter setback for all the efforts we made with regards to our safety culture over the last two years. … We are aware that we have lost trust again. We'll have to earn it anew."

Hatakka made his comments after an outage at the Kruemmel plant near Hamburg, Germany, and a decision by Swedish authorities to put Vattenfall's plants at home under special supervision because of safety concerns.

The Kruemmel plant shut down automatically on Saturday after a transformer short-circuited. Kruemmel was reopened only last month after a two-year closure because of a fire in 2007. The planned restart had been accompanied by several minor issues that culminated in the shutdown over the weekend.

The incident had refueled the German debate over the future of nuclear energy and caused Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel to order security checkups of all 17 nuclear reactors in Germany.

Vattenfall reacted as well: When it surfaced earlier this week that Kruemmel wasn't retrofitted with a more modern security system during its two-year closure as planned, the company fired the head of the power plant.

But the anger in Germany remains great. The Green Party and the Social Democrats even called on citizens to terminate their contracts with Vattenfall and make the switch to a different power supplier. The company lost many customers after a similar incident at the Brunsbuettel plant in 2007. And now even Sweden is losing confidence in its energy champion.

The country's nuclear watchdog decided to place Vattenfall under increased supervision after the incident in Germany and two earlier ones at Ringhals, a huge four-reactor, 3,662 MW power plant located south of Gothenburg.

The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority criticized Vattenfall's "safety culture," adding it had failed to correct safety shortcomings the authority had pointed out for the past years.

Ringhals said it would do everything in its power to satisfy authorities.

"The issue now is to ensure -- in close cooperation with the authority -- that our measures are yielding results," Ringhals Chief Executive Officer Bertil Dihne said in a statement.