Independent energy policy and nuclear analyst Mycle Schneider, recipient of the 1997 Right Livelihood Award for educating the public on the unparalleled risks of nuclear materials, has released the World Nuclear Industry Status Report annually since 2007. Recently, he visited Stockholm to engage with the Swedish press, academics and politicians on the findings of the 2023 Report. In an interview with Right Livelihood, Schneider busts the Swedish right wing’s assertion that nuclear energy is an indispensable tool for overcoming the climate crisis.
Since Sweden’s right-wing parliamentary faction took power in October 2022, a national debate on the role of nuclear energy in balancing the energy mix and combating the climate crisis has taken centre stage.
This debate came to a head late last year when the Swedish parliament passed a bill removing the country’s 10 nuclear reactor cap and announced its plan to build and start up two new reactors by 2035.
In response to whether nuclear energy has a place in balancing Sweden’s energy mix and combating the climate crisis, Schneider’s answer is resoundingly clear: absolutely not.
But, it’s not for the reasons you may think. Arguing that any debate on nuclear’s environmental or economic costs or benefits is useless, Schneider insists that expanding nuclear energy under the given time constraints is simply not possible.
“The idea that we could go from zero to 10 reactors in 10 or even 20 years is a completely distorted idea of the feasibility of nuclear programmes,” said Schneider. “I think that’s probably the worst part of the nuclear myths currently.”
Instead, he said, it is well established that a single nuclear project, from conceptual idea to grid connection, can take up to 25 years to finalise. It’s precisely this timeline that makes nuclear energy an unfeasible solution to the climate emergency—a crisis on which we cannot afford to wait.
Nuclear energy’s costliness is another barrier that prevents it from being a means of tackling the climate crisis.
“It’s the combination of money and time,” said Schneider. “In order to respond to this challenge, nuclear power is not an option. It’s not a bad or a good option. It’s not an option. It’s too expensive and, above all, it’s too slow to be eligible as an effective instrument to deal with the climate emergency.”
