彭博称瑞典核电扩张计划面临9月13日大选不确定性

On an open-air stage at Almedalen, Sweden’s annual summer politics festival, two of the nation’s most influential politicians took turns standing under the blazing sun to lay out sharply differing visions of their country’s energy future.

First, Energy Minister Ebba Busch hailed plans to build a new generation of nuclear reactors as a powerful and reliable foundation for Sweden's industrial march ahead. Expanding nuclear would not only help the country electrify key sectors, it would also lower emissions, increase independence from Russian energy and stabilize electricity prices, she told a raucous crowd on the Baltic island of Gotland. “Nuclear power might be better even than sliced bread,” she said.

Green Party co-leader Daniel Hellden dismissed the idea as an expensive distraction from cheaper and more easily built renewable energy sources. He then twisted the knife, calling out the government’s — and by extension, Busch’s — failure to make good on a 2022 election promise to build Sweden’s first nuclear reactors since the 1980s. “Nuclear was supposed to save us from all our energy problems, but where is it?” he said. “Nowhere to be seen.”

Since taking office nearly four years ago, Busch has become the face of a campaign to make Sweden a new European nuclear power. In addition to committing hundreds of billions of kronor in loans, guarantees and investments, she has also put her center-right government’s energy credibility on the line.

The outcome of that gamble — and whether one of Europe’s most ambitious plans to revive nuclear power will continue moving ahead — will become clear after voters go to the polls on Sept. 13. If the current coalition fails to win reelection, it could slow or transform the project and force investors to think twice before committing more time and money. Recent polls show the rival Social Democrats, who are expected to form a coalition with the Greens, with a slender lead. Their victory, Busch said in a later interview, would “put the Swedish nuclear power program in jeopardy.’’

The Swedes have had a love-hate relationship with atomic energy since the first large-scale nuclear power reactor began operating in the country in 1972. Even as nuclear grew to provide almost half of Sweden’s electricity in the 80s and 90s, making the country’s power costs among the lowest in Europe, political as well as grassroots opposition mounted. Between 1999 and 2020 six reactors were taken permanently offline. Those closures became a flashpoint during the 2022 election, when the four parties that now make up the current governing bloc blamed the then-ruling Social Democratic coalition for soaring electricity prices at the height of the energy crisis.

Weeks after the 2022 polls closed, Daniel Westlén, a nuclear specialist who worked with reactors at utility Vattenfall AB, walked into his new job as state secretary in the Busch-led Ministry of Climate and Enterprise.

He hadn’t slept much the night before, worrying that he would need “a hundred people” to handle the tasks that lay ahead.

But as he opened the doors to his office in a former palace in central Stockholm and saw the team already at work, he realized that he wouldn’t be alone in tackling one of the governing coalition’s top priorities. “I thought, aha, I actually have a hundred people here,” he said.

Nuclear power was the first key policy area that brought together the parties in the new government. “There’s really nothing else that this government has been so united on internally,” Westlén said.

All of the governing parties, from the center to the far-right, share a deep conviction that creating a new domestic electricity supply is vital for continued economic growth, which they put at or near the top of the political agenda. They see nuclear as key to electrifying Sweden’s highly polluting traditional industries, such as mining, forestry, iron and steel, ensuring they’ll be able to continue operating sustainably and profitably.

The opposition isn’t so sure. Green Party energy spokesperson Linus Lakso dismisses the idea that nuclear is the best way for Sweden to advance either its climate or economic goals. Citing recent projects in the UK, Finland and France, Lakso said new nuclear power could be twenty years away in Sweden, and with resources for wind and solar diverted during the build-out, emissions would remain high while the country waits for reactors. It would also be between three and five times more expensive than the Green Party’s favored mix of renewables and green sources such as hydropower, he added.

Similar debates are happening in other nations including Belgium and the Netherlands, where nuclear ambitions are also vulnerable to shifting coalition politics. But what sets Sweden apart is the scale of its program, which aims to build 10 new reactors capable of producing 10,000 megawatts by 2045. That’s a tall order, especially given that the last reactor to come online in Sweden did so more than 40 years ago.

The country still has six reactors in operation, but nearly four years into the program, all of the government’s achievements have been on paper. Westlén said Sweden has made progress in removing legal barriers to building new nuclear power, such as altering policy to accommodate “fossil free” rather than only “renewable” sources, and modernizing nuclear laws. Still, the country needs to rebuild some nuclear competencies and reestablish a domestic supply chain, and the government has to reassure reactor suppliers that Sweden’s nuclear ambitions won’t fall by the wayside if a new coalition takes power.

Other big questions also remain unanswered, such as how to dispose of future nuclear waste or pay for those costs, and whether the European Commission will approve the aid necessary to fund the program. There’s also the matter of demand. While the government argues that the electrification of the economy will double electricity demand in two decades, some observers, including Staffan Bergh, disagree. The head of analysis at industry consultant Bellpoint Partners AB, Bergh says that growth could be constrained by limited grid capacity, long approval processes and companies getting cold feet.

Addressing those challenges often falls on Carl Berglöf, the person tasked with turning political ambitions into reactors. The national nuclear-power coordinator is calm and unassuming, typically Swedish characteristics that have helped him navigate state bureaucracy and manage the interests of a diverse set of headstrong characters from government, industry, utilities and finance. Berglöf’s job, in effect, is to build resilience into a nuclear project designed to operate for decades, even as governments change.

While the Social Democrats broadly back the nuclear build-out, they’ve been critical of some of the underlying funding and subsidy plans. The Greens, moreover, are expected to try to force a lengthy inquiry into the project or call for its suspension as a condition of joining the ruling coalition.

Berglöf doesn’t think that the nuclear program will disappear after the election, but the political uncertainty helps explain why the government has tried to advance the project before voters go to the polls. Earlier this year, the state said it will take a controlling stake in Videberg Kraft AB, the company furthest along in its nuclear work. This summer, Videberg selected Rolls-Royce SMR to build three reactors on the country’s west coast.

At the same time, nuclear companies are pressing ahead despite the political risks. As of the start of September, the government has received six applications for state aid. Among them are Videberg, Blykalla AB and Fortum Oyj, which filed an application last month. Jacob Stedman, the chief executive officer of Blykalla, is confident about his company’s prospects, but he doesn’t expect things to move quickly. He anticipates that a reactor the company is planning in the US might come online before any at home, even though it has focused on Sweden for far longer. “It’s hard not to come to the conclusion that the US cares more about innovation, also in the nuclear field,” he said.

As voters and developers wait for more clarity, another sector is suffering. Investment in new Swedish wind projects has ground to a near-complete halt in recent years, with funders worrying that their projects may not be able to compete with the prices that the government plans to guarantee for nuclear energy. Foreign utilities that once had big plans for renewable energy have downsized their ambitions or even left Sweden, including Germany’s RWE AG and Denmark’s Orsted A/S. Only 29 megawatts of turbines were ordered last year, compared with more than 1,200 megawatts in 2023, according to industry group Green Power Sweden.

“The single-minded focus on new nuclear has put a wet blanket over the whole wind industry,’’ said Emelie Zakrisson, the Sweden head at OX2 AB, a wind project developer owned by private equity giant EQT AB.

If Sweden’s nuclear plans stall or fail, investors in new nuclear projects across Europe are likely to take note. One option under consideration is to compensate nuclear operators if reactors are shut down because of political decisions. That would provide the “industry with confidence across multiple electoral cycles,” said Sama Bilbao y Leon, Director General of World Nuclear Association.

Westlén, the government advisor, said the coalition is doing what it can to make the case for Sweden’s nuclear program to continue for at least the next four years.

“Maybe someone wants to change that, and well, that’s up to the voters on Sept. 13,” he said. “How does it feel? Well, what can I say? That’s democracy. That’s how it works.”