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| Fig. 1: Yearly percent change of Swedish nuclear energy consumption. [2] (Image Source: L. Alkhani) |
Beginning in the 1970s, Sweden began a project to shift their countries' reliance on oil to more sustainable sources of energy: namely Hydro, Nuclear, and Renewables. [1] This shift caused a steady increase in sustainable energy percentage in society until in 2007, when Sweden produced more electricity per capita from nuclear energy than any country in the world. [1] Moreso, a few years later, oil consumption was overtaken by Hydroelectricity which produced 0.67 EJ compared to 0.61 EJ. [2] Nuclear energy at 0.48 EJ was also extremely close to overtaking oil at 0.54 EJ, a 12% difference. [2]
Despite an emphasis on sustainable alternatives and seemingly progress in that field (including Nuclear Energy), up until 2011 that trend has since changed. [2] Oil has continued to drop, as it has decreased 11.5% from 2011 - 2021, whereas at this same time nuclear energy actually dropped 17.2%. [2] A trend of the reduction in percent consumption can be seen in Fig. 1. These seemingly paradoxical trends can actually be understood when looking at Sweden's government policies that seem to oppose the change to nuclear energy, although billions are spent annually on nuclear waste disposal programs. [3] Anti-Nuclear groups have led to policies such as a tax of €0.0075/kWh, which serves to disincentivize the consumption of nuclear energy and instead nudges people toward other alternatives that receive much more support and encouragement. [4] More specifically, renewables, in contrast to nuclear, are actually subsidized by the government, thus allowing for a tremendous amount of growth in that sector. [4] If we view this same timeframe from 2011 to 2021 where we saw nuclear energy consumption drop by 17.2%, the usage of renewable energy grew by 222.7% from 0.22 EJ to 0.49 EJ. [2]
As the country has continued to shift its energy profile towards sustainable development, the sobering reality is that while nuclear energy was, at one point, an energetic juggernaut, accounting for 39.5% of sustainable energy production, recent policies have shifted the focus towards renewables and therefore decreased the percentage share of nuclear to only 29.3% in 2021. [2]
© Layth Alkhani. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.
[1] T. Käberger, "History of Nuclear Power in Sweden," Estudos Avançados 21, 225 (2007).
[2] "BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2002," British Petroleum, June 2002.
[3] E. Segelod, "The Cost of the Swedish Nuclear Waste Program," Prog. Nucl. Energy 48, 314 (2006).
[4] A. Tsodikov, "Nuclear Power in Sweden," Physics 241 Stanford University, Winter 2016.