Who is Lars Olov Hoeglund, and why is he talking about Chernobyl?

In the hours after the shutdown of five of Sweden's nuclear power plants, Lars Olov Hoeglund, reportedly a former plant manager at the Forsmark nuclear power plant, helped kick the story into overdrive when he said that the incident that led to the action was the worst in the nuclear industry since Chernobyl.

Over at the World Nuclear Association blog, Per Jander has been taking a closer look into Hoeglund's background:

Originally titled "former construction manager" Mr Hoeglund has been promoted to plant manager and CEO of Forsmark in American/English media, and even head of the Swedish Nuclear Inspectorate in German media.

To set things straight, and maybe put this information in a different light, I would like to provide some background info on Mr Hoeglund. He was never employed by Forsmark. He was "construction manager" for some years at a Vattenfall mechanical engineering department. He did spend some years at the Forsmark site as a constractor, but only at the waste facilities.

Maybe more importantly, he has for years been locked in legal conflict with Forsmark (as well as Ringhals NPP), regarding some jobs that his consultancy tendered on but did not get selected for. Apart from this, he has through legal appeals in environmental courts delayed a number of projects at both Ringhals and Forsmark.

Interesting.

Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Environment, Energy, Politics, Sweden, Electricity

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