Energy From Thorium Discussion Forum

Although energy policies seem to be failing in countries such as France, which wants to reduce its nuclear power output to 50% of its electricity generation capacity by 2025, other countries can possibly show how a sensible energy policy is implemented.

A country which has reversed course on abandoning nuclear energy is Sweden. In 1980, its citizens chose to abandon nuclear energy in a referendum. But Sweden is now generally in favor of nuclear energy.

There are very interesting things to tell about the energy policy in Sweden. The bulk of its electricity generation comes from non-fossil sources. Thanks to its geography, Sweden can generate 45% of its electricity from hydro. Another 45% or so is nuclear generated. An interesting tidbit is that the electricity generated per capita from nuclear is even higher than in France, measured in kWh per day per person: 19.6 vs. 19 in France (2007 figures).

A very surprising and remarkable fact is that Sweden counts just 33,000 (approx.) residential natural gas customers, out of a population of almost 10 million. One might therefore ask how the Swedes heat their homes in a climate which can be inhospitable.

For heating their homes and offices and for hot water needs, the Swedes rely on district heating and electric heating, increasingly in the form of heat pumps: already more than 40% of detached houses in Sweden have heat pumps installed (2010 figures), which is replacing electric resistance heating, which was popular in Sweden in the 1980s.

As mentioned, an important of element of Sweden's energy policy is the importance of district heating - many villages and cities have their own district heating systems. Many of these district heating systems are fueled by waste, either from residuals from Sweden's extensive forestry industry or from using municipal solid waste, in which Sweden leads (landfilling has been prohibited in Sweden since a couple of years). This type of fuel has pretty much replaced oil, which was used initially for these district heating systems.

District heating systems are capital intensive and may not be suitable for every country, but it is still remarkable what has been achieved in Sweden, also with regard to the use of heat pumps. Unlike many other countries across the Baltic sea, it is or will not be dependent on gas from Russia (or Norway for that matter).

In my view, Sweden’s energy policy is very rational and sensible, especially in comparison to a country such as Germany, which is often promoted as a leader in the use of green energy, but which in reality is spewing out more CO2 year on year. Too bad that many countries keep sending officials on a Green energy fact-finding mission to Germany instead of Sweden.

More information on Sweden’s energy policy can be found in the attachment and the two links.

Links:

http://www.energimyndigheten.se/Global/ ... n_2012.pdf

http://www.avfallsverige.se/fileadmin/u ... ng_eng.pdf

Bad news about Sweden and its nuclear energy policy. The left-green coalition government, which came to power in October 2014, is reversing course and is planning to shut down nuclear power plants, according to James Conca (Forbes):

Sweden Better Not Close Its Nuclear Power Plants -- It Gets Really Cold There

Based on the article, no valid reasons were given for shutting these plants down. Who are these illogical people that seem to make poor political decisions? Where do the greens get their base from? Seems like the news media in Sweden is not doing its job in telling folks just how good things really are.

When I looked today I could not find swedish news about any course reversal and when I read the Forbes article I don't see it saying it has happened, only that the Green party would like it to and they are part of the current coalition and that it would be a bad idea. I did find some news in swedish about a planned early retirement of Ringharls 1&2 being delayed due to disagreement between Eon and Vattenfall. They are supposed to close 2025 but Vattenfall wanted to close them 2018-2020. It seems Vattenfall wants to close them early due to the swedish tax on nuclear power which is higher than for other ways of generating elictricity. The tax is being challenged through the EU legal system because it is discriminating against nuclear power. The tax was reformulated as amount/kWh in 2000 and in 2008 it was increased by 24%. There is also a discriminatory property tax of 1.7% of property value on nuclear power plants. Also, wind and solar are subsidized in various ways that increase costs for good energy sources, and that has been going on for many years.

Thanks for the additional input. Maybe the world is not so crazy as I sometimes think it to be. Some of those folks have some really long dark Winters. They've got time to think about which decisions are the correct ones.

I came across the following article, "The looming Nordic energy crisis", on EnergyPost (an interesting online magazine about energy issues), which was published last month and is about the Swedish and Nordic nuclear energy policy:

The looming Nordic energy crisis

This doesn't look good from my perspective as Sweden had a rather sensible energy policy.

Seems they made another U-turn. This time even the Greens agreed to eliminate the tax on nuclear power that was designed to make it uneconomical.

Vattenfall board approves Forsmark upgrades

They have two energy choices, nuclear and gas. Russia is the convenient source.