Nuclear power in Sweden

On 5 February 2009, the Government of Sweden announced an agreement allowing for the replacement of existing reactors, effectively ending the phase-out policy.

Some observers have condemned the referendum as flawed because people could only vote "NO to nuclear", although three options were basically a harder or a softer "NO".

In July 1992 an incident at Barsebäck 2 showed that the five older boiling water reactors had had potentially reduced capacity in their emergency core cooling systems since they started operation.

It was initially set at 5514 SEK per MWth per month, and only applied to nuclear power plants, thus penalizing them relative to other energy sources.

It said it would now support the stance of the other opposition parties in Alliance for Sweden, which were considerably more pro-nuclear than the then Social Democratic government.

[16] In June 2016, the coalition government decided to abolish the nuclear power output tax in 2019 and to successively replace the existing reactors with new ones.

A target of 2500 MWe of nuclear power by 2035 was announced, as electricity consumption is expected to rise to 300 TWh by 2045.

The proposal involved three elements: government loans, contract for difference guaranteed electricity pricing financed by consumers, and a mechanism ensuring a minimum return for equity investors.

The energy production of the remaining nuclear power plants has been considerably increased in recent years to compensate for the Barsebäck shut-down.

The subsequent leak of radioactive water from the nuclear waste store in Forsmark did not lead to a major change in public opinion.

[30] Prior public support for nuclear power stood in contrast to the stances of the major political parties in Sweden, but after the polls in late 2019 the debate changed and the parties that want to build new nuclear power in Sweden (SD, M, KD, L ) put forth a demand to the leading government party, the Social Democrats to choose a path forward, otherwise they might break with the standing energy agreement and work to reform the policy towards nuclear power, outside of the influence of the minority government.

A central interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, Clab, is located near Oskarshamn.

The government has also identified two potential candidates for burial of additional waste (high-level), Oskarshamn and Östhammar.

The report criticised the level of cooperation between nuclear site staff and police in the case of sabotage or attack.