The World - News from March 3, 1988

The Swedish government proposed a timetable for closing the country’s 12 nuclear reactors, taking the first tentative step toward a non-nuclear future. Energy Minister Birgitta Dahl told a news conference in Stockholm that the first reactor will close in 1995, a second the next year and the remaining 10 by 2010. The proposals by the ruling Social Democrats were certain to have the approval of Parliament, political sources said. They fulfill the requirements of a 1980 referendum in which voters opted for a cutback leading to abolition of nuclear power, which accounts for about half of Sweden’s electricity.