Sweden

Sweden’s electricity sector has among the lowest greenhouse gas emissions in the world, with the majority of its electricity mix coming from nuclear (about 40 percent) and hydroelectric (about 45 percent).
Sweden’s individual electricity consumption is already among the highest in the world, and the country’s overall electricity consumption is rising.
In 2010, Parliament repealed a 1980 policy promising to phase out nuclear.
After Japan’s Fukushima disaster, the nuclear regulator updated safety requirements demanding the four oldest operational reactors to be retrofitted, at a cost to operators.
By 2020, Sweden will have decommissioned four reactors in five years, reducing nuclear’s total generating capacity in the country by 2.7 GWe net.
Since the 1990s, nuclear power in Sweden has been subject to a penalty tax specific to nuclear reactors. In 2015 it was announced that the tax would finally be phased out in 2019.
The Swedish nuclear industry is financially responsible for all costs related to decommissioning and final storage of spent nuclear fuel.
In 2021, the political landscape for nuclear is mildly promising. The anti-nuclear left wing government is weak and its opposition believes in keeping Sweden’s current nuclear plants operating and is open to building new plants.
A 2021 poll found that 46 percent of Swedes support expanding nuclear power while only 14 percent want nuclear closures.

Banner photo credit: Timo Horstschäfer