"Every Swedish citizen shall be entitled to have free access to official documents, in order to encourage the free exchange of opinion and the availability of comprehensive information."

The paragraph above is the first act of the second chapter of The Freedom of The Press act, a cornerstone of the Swedish constitution. In short chapter two, titled "On the public nature of official documents", says that if I as a Swedish citizen wish to take part of any official document, I am entitled to have swift access to it, no questions asked.

The term "official document" is rather wide and includes pretty much any document in a publicly funded institution, exceptions being only work in progress, private non-work related messages, and documents that have explicitly been classified as non-public.

This is one of the first things they bring up in Swedish law classes. I had an introductory law course in the mid 1990's while getting my Masters Degree in Computer Science and Engineering. With the perverse pleasure that law-wranglers find in exploring the consequences of laws, the lecturer exemplified the extent of chapter two thus:

"You are perfectly allowed to walk into any public institution and say: "Hello. I intend to cause this institution some harm. Would you be so kind as to hand over today's mail please?", and they are compelled by the constitution to grant your request".

Yes, even the mail of a Swedish public institution are official documents. Pretty much any document that comes into, or comes out from such an institution is official, and as such all Swedish citizens are entitled access to them.

Skip forward about 14 years and we land on October 5, 2009, when a question popped into my mind: does this include emails to university employees as well? A quick ask-around and the question was answered: yes, it does. Emails to and from publicly funded Swedish universities are subject to chapter two, and as such they are official documents.

So I posted a request to the registry office of the Royal Institute of  Technology (KTH), asking for the emails of Peter Szakalos, five years back. I knew from a private contact that KTH uses Microsoft Exchange as their email system. I further knew how easy it is to make a copy of an inbox in MS Exchange and save it to a file. I made the request unspecific in order to save them some work in that they shouldn't have to have to sort through the email for specifics. Just grab the official part of the email and send it as an archive file. Piece of cake.

The question everyone keeps asking me at this point is "Why?". The answer is: curiosity about the discussion that led up to the conclusion that copper corrodes in anoxic environments and that KBS-3 may fail the authority review. Who was involved? Was there any sort of pressure on Szakalos? What parties are interested in this and have they been trying to get involved? Are there "politics" and non-scientific interests trying to push the result either way? That's why... and also partly because I figured this ought to be a unobtrusive, simple request that causes no particular disturbance to anyone.

I had no idea wat was about to happen...

The first hint that this might not be as smooth a ride as I expected was when the registry office at KTH mailed back after two days (so much for "as soon as possible" spelled out in the constitution) saying that they had received the request and intended to send the materials over... on paper.

Five years of email correspondence on paper?! I asked them: "are you sure about this? It'll just muck things up for both parties".

They replied and restated their intentions because "KTH's policy is to always send paper copies when official documents are requested".

Well "fine" I told them, I cannot ask them to break offical policy, but "isn't it at this point prudent to ask for an exception from or an expansion of the policy"?

They didn't email me back on that. So I waited a day... and then another day. Not a word from KTH. More days passed. Eventually I almost forgot about it. I figured maybe they were trying to find away out of sending the whole thing on paper because, in the words of Douglas Adams, "the mere idea is, quite clearly, utterly ludicrous".

Two weeks later on October 21, a friend of mine that knew of the request for email calls up, tells me to go to the homepage of "Ny Teknik" (translates to "New Tech"), a Swedish weekly tech newspaper. He tells me to scroll down the main page. What I found first made me laugh out loud, for real. And then my mind reeled when I read further, and realized my request had turned out to be everything except unobtrusive.

There were speculations about the nuclear industry trying to sabotage and silence Peter Szakalos.

What the fuck had I done?!

To be continued...

I have had some crazy last few days, culminating with a Swedish newspaper calling me and asking me if I am a saboteur trying to wreck a scientist's work on behalf of the nuclear industry! Whatever prompted anyone to ask something that bizarre? Well, the whole thing started over 30 years ago...

Anyone using fissionable material in Sweden is by law responsible for the safekeeping and disposal of the end-products. We're not allowing reprocessing, and we're not allowing the export of highly radioactive waste products, so we have to deposit any such materials.

To that end, the Swedish nuclear power companies formed the Swedish Nuclear Fuel And Waste Management Company, SKB for short for the purpose to researching a viable method to deposit spent nuclear fuel that is acceptable for the public as well as politically. Not that we didn't know of viable methods since such methods were known since the early 70's. But only very few of them were palatable, so we needed a bit of research of our own.  The project "KärnBränsleSäkerhet" (Nuclear fuel safety), or KBS for short, was started in 1976. In 1983 the third report of this project, KBS-3, was put forth and it proposed what is most likely a solution to the nuclear waste problem.

KBS-3 explained, click for a bigger image. © SKB

To summarize KBS-3, it describes a deep bedrock repository, 500 meters down where the fuel will be contained by three independent barriers. Tunnels will be made in the bedrock, and holes will be drilled out from the tunnels. Each hole will be lined with watertight bentonite clay, and in each of these holes a friction-welded canister made from 5 cm thick corrosion-resistant copper, with cast iron insets holding the nuclear fuel, will be placed. Slow moving water in the bedrock will wetten the bentonite  clay, which will swell to a pressure of up to 50 atmospheres, sealing all cracks and fissures, thereby preventing water movement around the canisters. When the repository is full, all tunnels will be filled with bentonite clay and the access tunnel may be filled to the surface with Portland cement. From then on, around the year 2070, it can be left there, maintenance-free for 100 000 years until the waste has decayed to a level of radioactivity that is the same as uranium ore. 

SKB has been performing research up 'til now to verify that KBS-3 holds. Using data from natural analogues such as Oklo, Gabon; Littleham Cove, UK; Cigar lake, Canada; along with theoretical analysis, experiments and simulations; they have been verifying that the different barriers should hold. And in late 2010/early 2011 SKB will be handing the final proposal, along with all the research, to the authorities for validation and being granted a permit to build the Swedish nuclear fuel repository.

However there is a cloud looming on the horizon. Up until now, it has been assumed that in the oxygen-depleted, reducing environment that exists in the Swedish bedrock chosen at Forsmark, copper cannot possibly corrode. But a team of scientists from Uppsala University (UU) and Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)  claim they have performed research where they have been able to make copper corrode under anoxic conditions. We have written about that before.

This has caused a bit of a stir because this research has not been independently verified yet. It has not been published in a peer reviewed manner. And SKB says that despite being given all these claims since years back, they haven't been able to reproduce the results. Putting further spin on this is that the scientists have patented a method of coating the capsules, someting which they claim solves the supposed problem with corroding copper. So we find ourselves in a situation where SKB says "We cannot confirm this is a problem" and the scientists Szakalos and Hultqvist are saying "But it is indeed a problem!". So in mid-November this year, there will be a workshop where Szakalos, representatives from SKB, and other researchers get together to discuss this matter in an effort to try to reach consensus.

And this is where I stepped into the picture and accidentally caused a bloody mess...

Continued in part 2...