Honestly I don’t care if it’s solar, wind, geothermal, biofuel, or nuclear, as long as it displaces fossil fuels. And it’s feasible on a very near time scale.
If Sweden did an honest investigation and found that renewables would be more costly and take longer, let em get nuclear.
We need an “all of the above” approach. This fight between nuclear and renewables is just stirred up by fossil fuel interests. Either is good. Both is good.
If Sweden did an honest investigation and found that renewables would be more costly and take longer, let em get nuclear.
Bullshit. Renewables are cheap as chips.
Think of a traditional power plant. There are 4 main cost catagories: Construction, Maintenance, Fuel, Demolition.
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In a traditional plant, over the life of the plant Fuel will by far be the biggest cost.
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For renewables, Construction, Maintenance and Demolition cost more (issues such as remote locations, weather, smaller generators means more generators which increases the mean time to failure) however they have ZERO fuel cost.
Renewable generation is profitable as fuck, moreso than nuclear. Your average wind farm pays itself off in less than 5 years.
This is a right wing government backing the interests of fossil fuels, by implementing policy that delays any meaningful reduction in fossil fuel use.
Sweden already has a significant surplus of electricity production, to the degree that we are one of the largest exporters in the EU and have had several bouts of negative spot prices this past summer.
However, we also have an effect deficit for the colder part of the year. Two-thirds of simulations by SVK (our national power distributor) find that the peak-load hour during the winter 25/26 will have a deficit equivalent to three gen-II nuclear reactors running at 100% (10’000MW), and 10 continuous hours of blackout due to power shortage. This is during the coldest part of the year when solar is ineffective, and additionally is often combined with high-pressure fronts, which means low wind speeds.
In Sweden upwards of 75% of homes get their heating from electricity, and potentially a full day without power in temperatures of beyond -30°C would literally mean people freezing to death.
Our power bill for December was 800€, and we both have geothermal heating and averaged 14-18°C indoors for the month. This was more than January, February and March combined. Meanwhile, the bills for all summer months put together (May, June, July and I expect also August) cost less than the bill for April (100€).
The most viable short-term solution they’re looking at is (unfortunately) reopening old oil plants from the 60s & 70s however, this might not be possible either, due to newer EU legislations. Bringing them into compliance in time could cost 100’s of millions of SEK, which ironically is more than the “prohibitively expensive repairs” that the previous gov:t cited when they shut down 4 nuclear reactors 2015-2020.
This is a right wing government backing the interests of fossil fuels, by implementing policy that delays any meaningful reduction in fossil fuel use.
Simply incorrect and ignorant and I could leave it at that.
But I won’t so here:
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Nuclear is carbon neutral
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The majority of Swedens energy production is still renewable and will continue to grow
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Nuclear is absolutely necessary for load balance
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Current nuclear plants are nearing their end of life and needs to be replaced
- I’m not critising nuclear for not being green.
- Renewables should grow (they’re profitable), but there should be further incentivised growth to help reduce reliance on fossile fuels more quickly.
- Yes, nuclear is brilliant for voltage and frequency stability. Large turbines have momentum in their spinning mass, when loads are switched on and off they keep spinning the same speed. However there are other options, eg rotating stabilisers, often used on very large ships but land installations are now being made also. These can be built without the nuclear red tape.
- Replacing existing nuclear plants is always a decent thing to do. You skip over many of the hurdles by building on the same site under the same nuclear permits. However taking money away from renewables to pay for this is questionable at best.
I think Sweden does have some geographical complications, along with a lackluster transmission network. These are much harder to get private investment for. However if there was a decent transmission network then there would be more utility of renewable generation in the north as well as the capability for import of energy from neighbouring countries or even export when Sweden has an excess.
Putting my balls on the table, I reckon if Sweden put all the money they’ve got in nuclear into transmission first and then renewables, I reckon they could switch off more fossil fuels more quickly.
The points I listed are the strongest arguments to expand nuclear power which both the left and right of Riksdagen generally agrees on.
So how this is a right wing conspiracy to further the fossil energy industry as you point out is still to me a mystery, that’s all you need to explain.
The fact that left and right wing parties both currently (in the middle of soaring energy prices and a cost of livings crisis) agree with measures that support fossil fuel interests does not change the fact that the Swedish government (which is currently right wing) is implementing policies that benefit the fossil fuel industry.
Also, I question the nuance in that - I’m sure many in the left that support nuclear investment, but are less happy about renewable targets being scrapped.
However I apologise if I came on a bit too hard with it being a left vs right wing issue. It’s wealth vs society.
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have you ever been in Sweden? it is a a rocky mountainous and mostly dark region. they only renewables that they can easily manage is geothermal and iirc they do not have the correct crust for it
According to another comment they have plenty of renewables up in the north but only use about 30% of that capacity. So it seems the main issue is with the transmission network for the country, its ability to get power from one place to another.
Instead of investing in 20 year nuclear power plant plans, they should be looking at accessing and expanding the available renewable generation in the short term.
the wind mills would be in inaccessible areas so you are better to just go with nuclear and invest in transmission from settlement to settlement instead to the turbines
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Imo, renewable should still be the target, nuclear should be the bridge towards renewable until it’s feasible enough
Which is exactly what they’re doing if you read the article.
I don’t get why people here are so hyped. Why is it a good thing to completely dump renewables?
It’s just the target being dumped. We can’t go 100% renewable and have nuclear. So by expanding nuclear the target has got to go. Renewables will still be expanded in Sweden.
One of the biggest problems that we have today when it comes to energy production (and a whole lot of other things) is putting all our eggs in one basket. Well how the fuck does this change anything?
I am not anti-nuclear, but dumping ALL renewable targets is moronic. Now you’ve simply replaced one egg for another egg, but it’s still just ONE egg. A stable energy portfolio is diversifying your sources.
The article doesn’t say if they intend to have 100% nuclear or if they dropped the target of 100% renewable to have a mix with more nuclear
Great observation 👍 could well be a misleading title
10 reactors? How long is that gonna take to build? A single reactor can take at least 8 years. So hopefully they aren’t ditching renewables all together. You can build a lot of solar and wind farms in those 8 years.
This is exactly the issue. Nuclear is necessary in the long term for a clean grid, however it will take much longer than as well as take investment away from renewable projects - which could achieve net zero more quickly than nuclear.
We should be going hard on current renewable technology, build out a massive excess (to account for reduced generation, the wind is always blowing somewhere and the sun shines throguh the clouds), and then once we have met all our energy needs from clean energy and phased out fossil fuels we can focus on fortifying the grid - in particular at that point we will need large turbines with lots of rotating mass, for voltage and frequency stability, which is a perfect role for nuclear to fulfill.
They are though. Focus on fossil fuels now and promise nuclear later - thats the plan.
Dosent sweden already have a fairly high and fairly stable energy production through their hydroelectiric power plants . Wouldnt it be better to just build more of those.
I’m not sure the situation in Sweden, but usually the easily developed hydro sites have already been built, and any remaining sites will be quite expensive compared to power generated. Additionally, climate change can threaten the reliability of hydro as snowmelt and precipitation become more unpredictable. Also, they generally have a fairly large negative environmental impact aside from climate change.
I’m sure there are some projects that will pencil out but probably not enough to decarbonize the whole energy grid.
We do, but enviromental regulations pushed through during the past two decades is essentially preventing any new or expanded hydro projects. In fact, a lot of smaller hydro plants are instead being demolished due to being incompatible with these laws.
What? They are demolishing hydro plants? Do you have a source for that?
Below is a news article from Swedish Television (SVT) translated to english using LLM. Couldn’t find it in english. Original article
New Stringent Environmental Requirements Threaten Small Hydropower Plants
Published on May 10, 2022
Over a 20-year period, around 1,800 small hydropower plants in Sweden are set to have their conditions re-evaluated by the land and environmental courts to ensure they meet the requirements of the EU’s Water Framework Directive. According to hydropower plant owners, these evaluations entail strict demands and increased costs that threaten the existence of culturally significant small hydropower plants.
Located along the Alsterån River in Nybro Municipality, one of Magnus Edvinsson’s hydropower plants has been in operation since the 1800s. He, like many other owners of small hydropower plants, is facing upcoming re-evaluations of environmental conditions to determine if they comply with environmental legislation.
According to Magnus Edvinsson, the measures and court costs could spell the end for many small hydropower plants.
“We’ve seen costs of 10 million Swedish Kronor for a single small hydropower plant. That completely shatters the economy of a company like this,” he explains.
Ensuring Fish Passage
The aim is to establish modern environmental conditions for all watercourses in Sweden. This includes promoting biological diversity, which might involve requirements for fish passages to be built, allowing aquatic organisms to move freely in the waterways.
The Water Authorities have determined that each water body must achieve good ecological status. According to Magnus Edvinsson, the environmental quality standard imposes excessively high demands and could result in costly reconstruction efforts.
“In our industry organization, we’ve already received indications that 30 percent of the small hydropower plant owners in the initial review group are considering dismantling their facilities even before the court review takes place. It’s not unlikely that it could reach up to 50 percent choosing to decommission once they are in court. It’s a shocking figure, and this is happening at the same time as we are experiencing the worst energy crisis in modern history,” says Magnus Edvinsson.
Hell yeah, tell me the best future isn’t nuclear power and electric rail like an old space Lego set.
Swede here.
Just clarifying some things.
Sweden is not dropping renewable energy. We are (at least for now) going to include nuclear energy among the other alternatives such as water, wind and solar.
But here’s one of the problems we are trying to solve with nuclear power:
Sweden is a major producer of high quality steel and we have set a target to become CO2 free in 2045 when it comes to steel production.
Currently the steel production in Sweden is responsible for 5500000 metric tons of CO2 per year and we have plans to go 0 CO2 by 2045.
To be able to do this we need, just for the CO2 free steel production, 70 TWh per year.
In 2020 there were 4333 wind turbines 26TW of electricity in Sweden. While you might think that we’d just build 9000 more it will not likely not solve the main problem with wind and solar power production: reliability.
So either we continue using fossil fuel to produce steel or we don’t. It’s as easy as that.
fucking based
Heckin’ basedarino
Wonder where they’re going to get all that fuel to power the reactors from lol
Oh wait, that’s right, Middle-East and Africa like always, so piss all has changed 😂
Most corrupt government ever in Sweden. That’s the reason
Fucking idiots.
At least I hope they have the good sense to build the plants somewhere relatively remote, just in case of a leak.
Good
Finally! Some countries are starting to make rational decisions!
