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Malmobus. Output from these deposits declined rapidly between 1960 and 1967 and rose only slightly in 1968 and 1969. In 1969 only 21,568 metric tons of coal were mined, less than 9% of the 1960 output. Value of production fell steadily throughout the decade, from US$993,214 in 1960 to $21,172 in 1969.
Imports supply nearly all of Sweden's requirements for coal and coke. In 1970 Sweden imported 1.8 million metric tons of coal and 1.1 million tons of coke. Coal and coke have been largely displaced in industrial and household use by petroleum products, but the expansion of Sweden's steelmaking capacity continues to require a growing supply of coke. The government-owned steelworks, Norrhottens Jarnwerks AB, is planning to build a coking plant at Lulea. The projected plant will have an annual capacity of between 1 million and 1.5 million tons of coke. Granges AB is planning to expand its existing 700,000-ton capacity coking plant at Oxelosund, but Sweden's other major coking plant, in Stockholm, was to close in 1972.
d. Nuclear power
With 10 new light-water reactors, totaling over 7,000 megawatts electrical (MWe) planned to go critical by 1980, Sweden's nuclear generating capacity is expected to reach an estimated 10,000 MWe by the end of this decade. All new major power facilities to be built after 1980 are expected to be unclear, and by 1985 about half of Sweden's installed electrical generating capacity will be provided by nuclear power stations.
Sweden's entry into the nuclear power field has not been without difficulty. The country's first power reactor, the pressurized heavy water Agesta unit placed in operation in 1963, is to be closed in 1974 because of excessively high maintenance costs, and technical failure of a 132 MWe heavy-water reactor at the Marviken powerplant led to its abandonment of 1971. In the latter year, however, the 440 MWe Oskarshamm I powerplant, Europe's largest light-water reactor not based on U.S. technology and Sweden's first commercial-scale power reactor, was successfully put into operation. Heavy-water reactors were consequently abandoned to concentrate fully on the further development of boiling-water/light-water reactors of Swedish design. Two additional light-water reactors, one 760 MWe and the other 820 MWe, are to be completed at Ringhaus in 1971.
Sweden's greatest vulnerability in the nuclear power field lies in its lack of high-grade uranium ores and its dependence on foreign enrichment services. Its original nuclear policy enunciated its goal of minimizing its dependence on imported fuel, thereby motivating the exploitation of its own uneconomical, low-grade shale resources. Efforts to minimize its dependence on foreign enrichment services also underlay Sweden's strenuous efforts to develop heavy-water reactors that could use the domestically produced natural uranium. The costs of extracting the uranium from domestic shale, however, have been prohibitive, and efforts to develop a natural uranium reactor have failed. Thus, Sweden has had to shift to the development of light-water reactors using enriched fuel, and its original goal of self-sufficiency has been replaced by the more modest goal of assuring its necessary supplies of fuel and or enrichment services from foreign sources.
Both the state and private industry have been active in the nuclear power field since 1947. They cooperate closely in the government-run (but one-third industry financed) US$24 million-a-year nuclear research center at Studsvik. In 1968 a joint state and private enterprise, ASEA-ATOM (a merger of the private nuclear division of Allmanna Svenska Elektriska AB with the commercial operations of the state-owned AB Atomenergi energy company's commercial operations), was launched to develop, design, construct, and market nuclear stations on a turn-key basis.
4. Minerals and metals (U/OU)
The exploitation of the large deposit of high-grade iron ore in northern Sweden is by far the most important feature of the mining and basic metals industries. In 1970, Sweden's production of iron ore and concentrates was 4.1% of world output (Fe content). The bulk of the iron ore produced is exported to West Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the United Kingdom. The domestic iron and steel industry, which is one of the world's largest exporters of specialty steels, normally utilize less then one-fifth of the country's annual output of iron ore.
Sweden produces a number of other minerals and metals in substantial quantity. Output of lead and zinc ores in 1970 amounted to more than 3% and 2%, respectively, of world totals. Sweden is the world's leading producer of white arsenic, the commercial forms of arsenic used in weed killers, sheep dip, and wood preservative. Significant amounts of sulfur pyrites, tungsten, and precious metals are also produced. Output of refined aluminum is based primarily on imported raw materials. Sweden is also developing into a large-scale producer of refined copper, primarily from imported ore obtained increasingly through Swedish holdings in foreign mining companies, but, more recently, from Sweden's very low-grade arctic copper ore.
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200090018-7
