Ågestaverket

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Ågestaverket, also known as R3, was the third nuclear reactor built in Ågesta, outside Stockholm, Sweden. Heavy water moderated and fueled with natural uranium, the project was started in 1957, and the underground reactor was used for heating a suburb of Stockholm from 1964 to 1974, plus some power generation. It produced 105MWt, and 10MWe.

On May 1, 1969, the power plant came close to a nuclear meltdown when a poorly installed valve started leaking, causing short circuits which almost caused the cooling water pipes to burst, which would have drained all cooling water from the plant, making a nuclear meltdown inevitable. It was later established that it was a coincidence that this did not happen. The incident was covered up by the authorities and the public was not made aware of it until April 13, 1993, when the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter published an article about it.