There is no reason for the Swedish government not to approve construction of a final repository for used nuclear fuel at Forsmark now that the regulator has said it will not revise its own approval of the project, the head of nuclear fuel management company SKB said.

SKB chief executive officer Johan Dasht said regulator SSM believes the government can decide on a permit for the repository. He said the Swedish National Council for Nuclear Waste wanted to see further research, but this research is already part of an SKB research programme approved by the government in 2019 and “the government now has all the necessary documentation to decide on a final solution for Sweden’s spent nuclear fuel”.

SSM announced recently that studies included in the consultation on SKB’s application to build the repository at Forsmark, north of Stockholm in southeast Sweden, presented no reasons for it to change its previous assessment of the project. The regulator was responding to government requests for more information about the application.