Sweden’s parliament has voted to change its 100% renewable target to a 100% fossil-free target, leaving the door open for nuclear.
Sweden’s parliament has voted to change its 100% renewable target to a 100% fossil-free target, leaving the door open for nuclear.
The big problem with nuclear power (other than the disposal of nuclear waste) is the time and money it takes to build the damn reactors. Even if they decided to build one right now it would still be decade or more before they were producing power (taking into account the planing and approval process). In that time you could have constructed several alternative energy farms, battery storage and distribution infrastructure. In addition, several generations of solar, wind and storage technology will have occurred potentially making nuclear power even more unattractive.
Sweden has several power plants that are not running because the previous government tried 100% renewable energy and failed and ended up having to buy electricity from Eastern Europe to supply the country’s needs several years in a row. The electricity purchased was from coal, far worse for the environment than nuclear.
You can’t turn off reactors in a country before your production of renewable energy is sufficient for the country’s needs, but this is what has happened in Sweden looking back four years or so, and with every reactor shutdown more electricity from abroad has been required.
The current government is not talking about building new reactors, they are planning on opening up the reactors that the previous one closed down to make way for what they (previous government) failed to provide its citizens. Closing down before building is NOT the way to go.