Nuclear Monitor #922

Rolf Lindahl, Climate and Energy Campaigner, Greenpeace

For many years Sweden was on a clear path to embrace the future and transition away from nuclear energy dependence. The oldest reactors were phased out and 100% renewables were set as a political goal. Then in 2022 a new far-right government came into power after using the energy crisis to insert a pro-nuclear debate in which renewables were seen as a problem. The consequences are already visible: offshore wind installations are plunging, and climate targets are moving further away.

“Let us be clear: New reactors in Sweden are a non-issue, outplayed by both technological developments and economic realities.” This was declared in 2016 in an op-ed in the largest daily in Sweden by the Swedish state-owned energy giant Vattenfall and EON Sweden, a large nuclear operator in the country at the time.

Almost ten years ago now, this was a completely logical statement, one that the whole business sector agreed with. The red-green government that came into power in 2014 paved the way for a transition towards renewables. Low electricity prices and increasing safety costs of nuclear power resulted in a decision by operators in 2015 to phase out four of the ten oldest nuclear reactors in the country. And in a cross-party energy agreement in 2016, 100% renewables was set as a historic goal for the electricity system of Sweden. In the spirit of compromise, the agreement did not rule out new nuclear construction, but it could not expect to receive any state subsidies.

For the first time in decades, the intensive and polarised debate over nuclear power seemed to have been resolved. The direction was clear, the future belonged to renewables.

Energy populism

Few could imagine the complete rollback that would happen only six years later. The pandemic, followed by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, coupled with a European energy market hit by skyrocketing prices paved the way for this reversal. In the national general election 2022, the right-wing parties deliberately used the European energy crisis to gain power. They succeeded in shaping a false media narrative that the renewable agenda of the red-green government led to the closure of reactors, which in turn was the reason for high electricity prices. The real reasons such as high gas prices and failures of French nuclear reactors could not outmatch the heavy bombardment of negativisms towards renewables and the constant repetition that nuclear power is the only solution.

This strategy had been carefully selected to undermine the credibility of the former government parties, the Social Democrats and the Greens, in order to secure a right-wing win in the election. They managed to insert the issue of nuclear power into the center of not only energy politics but also environmental and climate debate.

This energy populism paved the way for the victory of a right-wing conservative government in Sweden that, for the first time, was actively collaborating with and dependent on the ultranationalist party Sweden Democrats, a party with neo-Nazi roots.

Nuclear crusade

In the European context, the Swedish electricity system is very stable and competitive. Sweden has for many years had some of the cheapest electricity prices in the EU and in 2022, Sweden was the country that exported the most electricity in the entire Union and came in second only to France in 2023. Sweden is among the countries in the EU that use the least fossil fuels and has one of the highest proportion of renewables in the electricity mix. And it has been growing steadily.

Over the years, many studies have demonstrated that it is technically feasible and economically realistic to phase out nuclear power and switch to a 100% renewable electricity system in Sweden. Greenpeace showed this already back in 2011, while the Swedish Energy Agency and the national grid authority, Svenska kraftnät, did the same the other year. And recently, Chalmers University of Technology showed that even with a sharp increase in electricity use, renewables are not only entirely possible but also most cost-optimal. The development of battery and other energy storage solutions combined with user flexibility will help secure a robust energy system.

New nuclear power is getting more and more expensive and taking longer and longer to build, while renewables are getting cheaper and cheaper and becoming more and more dominant around the world. But despite all this, the government in Sweden chooses to turn a blind eye to the development and is trying to consign the country to a nuclear dead end.

What we have seen since the current government came into power in September 2022 is a crusade led by the Christian Democratic energy minister Ebba Busch to bring nuclear power back from the dead. The goal of 100% renewables has been scrapped and replaced by the goal of a “fossil-free” electricity system. The limitation of no more than ten reactors on the current locations have been removed, and new support mechanisms for faster and smoother licensing processes for new reactors are being introduced. The government has also presented a roadmap for new nuclear power in which they want to see have a “massive expansion of new nuclear power by 2045”. The government’s ambition is to have two large nuclear reactors in place by 2035 and the equivalent of ten large reactors by 2045. How this is going to be realised is not entirely clear. The plans are criticised for being unrealistic even by the most prominent right-wing think-tank in the country. Yet the government, locked in by their election promises and firm conviction, is pressing ahead.

However, despite the government’s best efforts and promises of new nuclear power, investors have yet to show any interest. Therefore, the conservative, and supposedly market-oriented government has – ironically – been forced to open up massive subsidies to try to attract speculators to the Swedish energy market. Besides credit guarantees of SEK 400 billion (~€35 billion) a government inquiry recently proposed government-issued loans up to SEK 600 billion with low interest rates as well as an agreement in which a fixed price is guaranteed for 40 years. Even though the proposal has been widely criticised because, inter alia, unilateral nuclear subsidies obviously would distort the market and undermine the expansion of renewable energy, the government intends to move on next spring with a massive subsidy proposal.

A smokescreen

According to the current government, new nuclear power is portrayed as the main, or even only, solution to safeguard green transition. A massive amount of new electricity is to be needed both in the transport sector and in the industry. As such, new nuclear is said to be the very prerequisite to achieving our long-term climate goals.

But this is of course a complete falsification. On the contrary, the nuclear agenda of the right-wing government is nothing more than a smokescreen for lack of climate action. Their hope for new reactors in the very distant future will obviously not reduce emissions here and now.

According to the IPCC’s 2023 AR6 synthesis report, renewable energy, especially solar and wind energy, is by far the cheapest and fastest way to reduce emissions by 2030. Nuclear power, on the other hand, is significantly more expensive and has a comparatively small ability to contribute to the needed emission reductions.

In a recent assessment by the Swedish Nature Conservation Society, the government’s ambition to build 10 new reactors by 2045 would significantly delay climate transition and will lead to an increase of 220 million tons of CO2 emissions when compared to a renewables scenario where low carbon energy would be installed much faster than any nuclear ever could be.

But the government’s reactor fanaticism does not end there. They are also actively opposing the development of renewable energy. In the first half of 2024, almost all wind power projects in Sweden were cancelled due to local opposition and parties in the governing coalition have ramped up their rejection of new projects during the latest years. And on November 4, a major blow to the development of offshore wind power in the Swedish Baltic Sea came when the government rejected a whopping 13 applications for offshore wind power. These projects would have been in place far sooner than any new nuclear power project and together would have had a capacity equivalent to Sweden’s entire current electricity production. The alleged security policy arguments are just pretexts when other countries obviously can combine military interests with offshore wind power, and even the defense industry itself says that the security aspects can be solved.

“No to wind power on our coast”. This manipulated image published in the run-up to the general election in 2022 by a local section of the conservative party is an illustration of the right-wing mobilization against renewable energy and pro-nuclear power.

While the government is busy trying to give artificial respiration to a dying nuclear power industry, Sweden’s climate work has completely collapsed. The government climate measures are simply inadequate to reach national or international climate targets. This is noted by scores of national expert agencies such as the Climate Policy Council, Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, Swedish Energy Agency and Swedish Fiscal Policy Council. Sweden, that used to be at top of international climate policy in comparisons, is now quickly falling behind. According to the Climate Change Performance Index, Sweden is now in place 41 in the category of climate policy. In 2021 Sweden was ranked number two, after Finland. Also, Sweden has fallen in the aggregated category. For a number of years, Sweden was ranked highest but has now dropped to place 11.

Repercussions beyond Sweden

What happens in Sweden is not only a concern for the Swedes. It also has repercussions far beyond national borders. The Swedish government is an engaged member of the European Nuclear Alliance and is actively pushing the nuclear agenda within the EU, which also has gained traction among other countries lately. The pro-nuclear member states are advocating for a “low carbon directive” instead of a “renewable energy directive”, are opposing a new renewable energy target and want to open up for state aid for nuclear power. Sweden – once an international frontrunner in climate politics – has now become a climate laggard and a nuclear lobbyist.

To redirect public money towards nuclear energy undermines and grabs resources from the renewable energy transition which is one of the key elements of achieving our climate objectives. Therefore, the lesson of Sweden is that the nuclear agenda is not only a dangerous distraction from urgent climate action, it is also an imminent threat to a sustainable future for all.