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ENERGY

Sweden’s state power company to study building mini nuclear plants

Sweden's state power company Vattenfall is looking into building a series of small modular nuclear reactors at the site of its decommissioned Ringhals plant, in what would be the first new nuclear power station in the country since 1980.

Published: 28 June 2022 14:44 CEST
Sweden's state power company to study building mini nuclear plants
The control room at Ringhals 1 as it was shut down in 2020. Photo: Jonas Lindstedt/TT

The company’s chief executive Anna Borg said in a press release on Tuesday that the first new reactors could come into operation by the early 2030s, “provided that a pilot study concludes that it would be profitable and all other conditions for a future investment decision are met, in particular, new regulations for nuclear power”. 

The statement comes at a time when Sweden’s right-wing opposition has politicised the issue of nuclear power, criticising the Social Democrat-led government for allowing the the first two nuclear power plants built at Ringhals near Gothenburg to be decommissioned in 2019 and 2020, five years earlier than intended when they were built.

“I think it’s fantastic and exciting news that Vattenfall wants to invest in new nuclear power in southern Sweden,” said Carl-Oskar Bolin, chair of the Swedish parliament’s business committee. “This is exactly what’s required to stabilise power prices in the long run.” 

Johan Pehrson, leader of the Liberal Party, accused the Social Democrats of using the power company to play political games. 

“S [the Social Democrats] has woken up and realised that they can’t win the election by making Sweden cold, and handing over a dead world to our children,” he said. 

Borg told the TT newswire that new nuclear power might be required to meet the demand for emission-free energy.

“We need to find a way forward to meet the increased demand that there is,” she said, pointing out that the number of nuclear power stations in operation in Sweden had fallen from ten to six over the last seven years. 

According to the global nuclear proliferation watchdog, the IAEA, there are several SMRs already under construction, and one, a floating reactor in Russia, already under operation. 

Vattenfall said that it planned to carry out a preliminary study in 2023 and 2024, looking at different designs, before giving the green light for construction to start towards the end of the decade. 

SMRs produce around 300MW, about the same as a gas fired power station, and much less than the 1,100MW produced by one of the modules at the power stations built in the 1970s in Sweden. 

As they can be built at equipment suppliers and then shipped to the site where they will be located, they are expected to be cheaper than the current generation of nuclear power plants, which have historically seen enormous cost overruns and delays. 

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ENVIRONMENT

Swedish government to scrap flight tax from next summer

Sweden's government has announced that it is abolishing the country's flight tax in its latest measure rolling back the environmental policies of the previous government.

Published: 3 September 2024 16:40 CEST
Swedish government to scrap flight tax from next summer

At a joint press conference with the far-right Sweden Democrats, Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, said that the tax had been an obstacle to Swedish competitiveness. 

“If you want to make sure of the ability to have good air connections and keep Sweden as an international hub, you must make sure not to discriminate against the very competitive advantage that Sweden has,” he said. “This is both in line with long-term climate policy and to protect the long country’s travel opportunities.” 

The flight tax was brought in back in 2018 by the previous government coalition of the Social Democrats and the Green Party, and was set at a deliberately low level, with the idea that it could then be successively raised. 

At the level it is set at this year, it adds about 76 kronor extra per passenger to a flight to Europe, about 315 kronor to a flight to the USA and about 504 kronor to a flight to Thailand. This year, it is expected to bring in total tax revenues of about 1.8 billion kronor. 

At the press conference, the government said that the tax would be scrapped entirely from July 1st next year. 

“We are doing this to promote air traffic across the country and to improve accessibility across the country. This will mean, quite simply, lower ticket prices,” the Sweden Democrats’ group leader, Linda Lindberg, said at the press conference. 

The government had previously considered halving the tax but has instead opted to abolish it. 

The country’s energy and business minister, Ebba Busch, brushed away the concerns that boosting air traffic would increase emissions. 

“As far as Sweden’s climate goals are concerned, it won’t make a huge amount of difference,” she said. “Our ambition is that this is going to increase the amount of air passengers which in the long run will mean more air traffic. This is going to affect climate emissions, but that’s something we’ll look at later on.”

Busch said that as most countries in the EU lacked a flight tax, it had been harming Sweden’s competitiveness. 

“This is extremely important for many companies and for large sections of Swedish industry — that we can keep our flight connections,” she said. “Only a minority of countries in the EU have a flight tax, so this has been a very tough competitive disadvantage for Sweden.”

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