Sweden abandons 100% renewable energy goal as EU reconsiders climate policies

More than 40 years after the country voted to phase out nuclear power, Sweden is now looking to build more nuclear reactors after its parliament formally abandoned its 100% renewable energy target to meet net-zero by 2045.

On Tuesday the country modified its net zero targets to 100% “fossil-free” which its right-leaning government creates the conditions for the return of nuclear power to the country’s energy mix.

“We need more electricity production, we need clean electricity and we need a stable energy system,” Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson said in parliament.

Observers said the decision implicitly acknowledges the low quality of unstable wind and solar, and is part of a general collapse of confidence in the renewable energy agenda pioneered in the Nordic countries and in Germany.

British lobby group Net Zero Watch, which describes the net zero roadmaps of Western nations as ‘utopian and unsustainable,’ welcomed the move. In recent weeks it blasted the Bank of England for spending £150,000 to measure the carbon footprint of plastic bank notes.

It says the net zero plans envisioned by the International Energy Agency (IEA) — which are the basis of Canada’s own net zero efforts — “are dangerously expensive and will result in painful reductions in living standards for all but the richest, as well as national weakness, societal instability and the eventual failure of the decarbonization effort.” 

In that regard, Sweden came to the only logical conclusion, it said.

“Living close to Russia focuses the mind, and the Swedish people not only wish to join NATO, but also to ground their economy in an energy source, nuclear, that is physically sound and secure, unlike renewables which are neither,” said Dr. John Constable, NZW’s energy director.

“For the time being the UK government continues to live in a fantasy of their own making, but we are coming to the end of the green dream.”

The UK has every reason to follow Sweden’s lead, but should go even further by increasing the use of natural gas, he added. 

“Current UK climate policies are ill-informed and utopian and will almost certainly fail to deliver Net Zero emissions by 2050, or ever. It also runs a high risk of deep and irreversible societal damage,” he wrote.

Constable’s proposal envisages a gas to gas-nuclear system, unwinding the extreme costs of the failing renewables fleets, delivering immediate consumer relief and a rapid program of low-carbon combined cycle gas turbine construction on existing sites, leading to a new generation of nuclear employing small modular reactors in the UK.

It offers valuable lessons for Canada which released its own net zero roadmap based on IEA numbers this week, translating them into a 75% reduction in fossil fuels, including a 60% cut in natural gas and 83% less oil sands production.

“A small population in a large country such as Sweden can afford to reject fossil fuels, relying on nuclear and hydro and biomass, but the United Kingdom, and other substantial industrialized economies need to face the facts, and understand that only a gas to nuclear pathway is viable to remain industrialized and competitive,” NZW said.

Around 98% of electricity in Sweden is already generated from hydro, nuclear and wind.