By Emma Farge and Dave Graham
GENEVA/ZURICH (Reuters) – Bringing new nuclear power plants online in Switzerland could take decades due to numerous political and financial hurdles, energy experts and politicians said, after the government announced plans to lift the ban on building new plants to lift.
The Federal Council on Wednesday reversed a 2017 decision to phase out nuclear energy to meet climate targets and respond to geopolitical uncertainties such as the war in Ukraine, which has fueled fears of disruptions in the country.
Nuclear power advocates welcomed the move, with Le Temps newspaper calling it “good news” in light of global changes since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, which prompted Switzerland’s exit plan.
But few expect change to happen easily – or quickly.
Stephanie Eger, a nuclear energy expert at the Swiss Energy Foundation (SES), said the process of changing the law, finding billions of dollars in financing, getting the permits – while fending off opponents’ likely referendums – and building a power plant would probably take a lot of time. at least 35 years.
Subsidies would most likely also be needed and therefore proponents of nuclear power would need “a lot of stamina and deep pockets” to see it through, Eger said, arguing that there were cheaper and more sustainable alternatives.
Currently, almost a third of Swiss electricity production comes from nuclear energy, while hydropower accounts for about 62%, according to Swiss government figures. Fossil fuels and renewable energy, excluding hydropower, account for only 9% of the country’s energy.
Andreas Pautz, head of the Center for Nuclear Engineering and Sciences at the Paul Scherrer Institut, a research center, said the years it will take to lift the ban on new nuclear power plants and get permits approved mean construction is unlikely to continue will start before 2040.
If that were to happen, with supply chain improvements and streamlined regulations, commercial operations could begin in the mid-2040s, Pautz said.
Roger Nordmann, a federal MP who opposed the U-turn, was more skeptical and saw that it would last until the early 1960s.
“It is a very long process and it will be very difficult,” he said, predicting that referendums on three future bills would be needed to approve a new factory under Switzerland’s direct democracy.
Switzerland has decommissioned one factory and the remaining three are aging, built between the late 1960s and early 1980s.
Energy Ministry spokesperson Marianne Zünd said it is too early to give an estimated date for new projects.
But current factories could continue operating until at least age 60, provided they meet safety requirements, she said.
Even if the government overcomes parliamentary opposition, local pockets of resistance could threaten progress.
Switzerland’s first planned reactor had a meltdown in 1969, fueling safety fears that persist today. Another challenge is cost, with neighboring countries like France going billions of dollars over budget on nuclear projects.
“It comes too late,” says Nathan Solothurnmann of Greenpeace. “And it’s a distraction because we now have to focus on renewables.”
