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| Fig. 1: Oskarshamn Nuclear Power Plant in Sweden, Reactors O1, O2, and O3. (Source: Wikimedia Commons) |
Nuclear energy in Sweden has always been a contentious topic. In fact, Sweden was the first country in the world that declared it would phase out nuclear energy. However, those plans were abolished and nuclear energy powers 30.8% of the country's electricity today.
Sweden's first commercial nuclear reactor was the Oskarshamn-1, shown in Fig.1 , which went into commercial operation in 1972. [1] It is a light-water reactor (LWR), which uses normal water for both its coolant and neutron moderator. LWRs are the most common type of nuclear reactor. The power plant typically produced 60-70 TWh/year. By 1986, nuclear power plants were responsible for half of the electrical output in Sweden.
However, nuclear energy usage became a widespread concern following the Three Mile Island accident in the US. This resulted in a national referendum on nuclear energy in 1980, wherein Sweden decided to phase out all nuclear reactors in operation by 2010. [2] This was to be down by increasing taxes, to the point that sustaining a nuclear reactor would be unprofitable and unreasonable.
In 1984, Sweden proposed a variable production tax on nuclear power, at a rate of at SEK 0.002 kWh-1. By early 2016, however, the tax rate had increased to nearly SEK 0.07 kWh-1 (US $0.0068 kWh-1). [3] This immense tax made up about 1/3 of the cost of operating a nuclear reactor.
With the shift in Sweden's ruling political party, however, a reverse to the phase-out was made in 2010. [4] In addition, in June 2016, Sweden decided to abolish the aforementioned nuclear tax. [3] Instead, aging power plants would be replaced with new ones. This marked denotes a shift in nuclear energy sentiment in the country, with policies now in favor of further nuclear energy production.
Today, Sweden remains a pro-nuclear country. As recently as October 2022, Sweden decided to have the Ringhals 1 and 2 reactors restarted. Electricity production in Sweden is around 170 TWh, with 30.8% from nuclear power. [5] In comparison to neighboring countries, Finland gets 34% of electricity from nuclear power, 3% in Denmark, and there are no nuclear power plants in Norway. Sweden remains a powerhouse of nuclear power usage amongst the Nordic countries.
Overall, despite the turmoil surrounding nuclear energy regulation throughout Sweden's history, the country remains a top user of nuclear energy today. It ranks 11th globally in nuclear electricity supplied, at 51.4 TWh, despite being ranked 91st in total population. For now, the future of nuclear energy seems promising in Sweden as more and more legislation to cement nuclear energy production is enacted.
© Andrew Gan. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.
[1] S. A. Qvist and B. W. Brook, "Environmental and Health Impacts of a Policy to Phase out Nuclear Power in Sweden," Energy Policy 84, 1 (2015).
[2] K. Edberg and E. Tarasova, "Phasing Out or Phasing In: Framing the Role of Nuclear Power in the Swedish Energy Transition," Energy Res. Soc. Sci. 13, 170 (2016).
[3] S. Patel, "Abolished Nuclear Tax Is Relief for Unprofitable Nuclear Operators in Sweden," Power Magazine, 1 Aug 16.
[4] U. Roßegger and R. Ramin, "Explaining the Ending of Sweden's Nuclear Phase-out Policy: A New Approach by Referring to the Advocacy Coalition Framework Theory," Innovation-Abingdon 26, 323 (2013).
[5] "BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2022," British Petroleum, June 2022.
