Vol. 73/No. 8      March 2, 2009

There are 10 nuclear reactors in use in Sweden at three different plants. They produce close to one-third of the country’s energy, with the remaining energy coming from oil, biofuels, and hydroelectric power. The oldest reactor was built in 1972 and the newest in 1985. The new reactors are to be built on the sites of the old ones with no increase in the number in operation.

Maud Olofsson, leader of the Center Party, called it “a historic agreement” and her most important decision as minister of industry. She said it is “for the sake of my children and grandchildren.”

Shortly after the 1979 near-meltdown of the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania, a referendum was passed in Sweden banning construction of new nuclear power stations, with a deadline of closing existing ones by 2010. An agreement between the Social Democrats, Left Party, and Center Party in 2004 did away with the 2010 deadline. But the ban against building new reactors remained in place.

In the 1980 referendum there were three ballot initiatives. They differed mainly on how fast to close the existing reactors and were supported in various combinations by the Conservatives, Liberals, Social Democrats, Center Party, Christian Democrats, and Left Party. None of these parties advocated expansion of nuclear energy. The Center Party was the leading force in demanding immediate closure.

Leading employer representatives in Sweden welcomed the new agreement to resume building reactors. Urban Bäckström, managing director of the umbrella organization Swedish Enterprises, said that Olofsson has shown “political courage.” He said, “The political game playing with the energy issue needs to end and in this the Social Democratic Party and the trade union movement has a major responsibility… . To say no to this agreement is to say no to safe jobs in the future.”

Olofsson has invited the opposition parties to talks. This was welcomed by Mona Sahlin, of the Social Democrats, the leading force in the newly formed electoral bloc with the Green and Left parties. “We will go together to the talks and have mutual questions and answers,” Sahlin said. All three parties oppose building new reactors.

Tomas Eneroth, spokesperson for the Social Democrats on energy issues, wrote an opinion piece in Svenska Dagbladet February 7 titled “A broad agreement is needed.” After welcoming the invitation to talks he outlined his party’s position: “The international experiences of construction of new nuclear power stations in the UK and Finland should warn us. Costs have skyrocketed and become much more expensive than wind energy. Renewable energy prices are on the contrary going down… . This is the future for Sweden’s energy production, not nuclear power… . We are also in agreement that we need a surplus of energy. The most important thing is to guarantee a safe and secure energy production for our industries.”

Nuclear energy production in Sweden has produced an average of 180 tons of nuclear waste a year since 1985. The waste is being stored. No decision has yet been made on its final disposal.

The decision by the Swedish government was featured in Germany, where the Social Democrats and the Greens passed a law in 2002 that all German nuclear energy is to be phased out by 2022. The Christian Democrats and Liberals in Germany have pledged to repeal the law if they win the elections in September. Belgium’s government has decided to phase out nuclear energy, but with a series of provisions. Reactors closed in Italy after the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, but the government now says it wants to reopen them.

Today 438 reactors are in use in 30 countries, supplying 5.9 percent of the world’s energy. The United States has most of them, with 104, followed by France’s 59 and Japan’s 55. There are 44 new reactors under construction, mostly in Asia. In addition China, Japan, India, Pakistan, and Iran are building reactors, as are Russia, France, Finland, Turkey, and Argentina.  
 
 
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