The Swedish government has announced plans to secure a direct majority stake in the entity tasked with constructing three small modular reactors (SMRs). This initiative marks the first time in five decades that the nation has moved to build new nuclear power facilities, choosing SMR technology to meet its evolving energy demands.<\/p>\n
Energy Minister Ebba Busch highlighted that the global landscape currently faces an energy crisis reminiscent of the 1970s, the era when the majority of Sweden’s existing nuclear infrastructure was established. Busch pointed to significant geopolitical instability and rising requirements for electrification as primary drivers, noting that energy resources have increasingly been used as tools of pressure. She emphasized that the country cannot afford to rely solely on weather-dependent renewable energy sources or foreign powers for its power security.<\/p>\n
Since 2023, the right-wing coalition led by Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, supported by the Sweden Democrats, has committed to a substantial expansion of nuclear capacity. To execute this project, the state-owned utility company Vattenfall established a subsidiary named Videberg Kraft. Subsequently, an industrial consortium known as Industrikraft invested 400 million kronor, or approximately $41 million, to secure a 20-percent interest in the venture.<\/p>\n
On June 25th, the government confirmed its intention to acquire a 60-percent direct stake in Videberg Kraft, with Vattenfall and Industrikraft each maintaining a 20-percent share. The parliament has already authorized this acquisition, with the total investment capped at 1.8 billion kronor. This decision follows a 1980 nonbinding referendum in which Sweden voted to phase out nuclear power, a policy shift that has led to the decommissioning of six of its original 12 reactors. Currently, the six remaining reactors provide about 30 percent of the nation’s electricity.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, Vattenfall selected the British firm Rolls-Royce to oversee the construction of the three SMR units at the Ringhals nuclear power plant, located in southwest Sweden. The facility already hosts two of the country\u2019s operational reactors. Once completed, these small modular reactors are projected to deliver an energy output of roughly 1,500 MW, which is equivalent to the power generated by two large traditional reactors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sweden is moving forward with its nuclear expansion plans by securing a 60-percent ownership share in the firm responsible for building the country’s first new reactors in 50 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[377,408,410,232,409],"class_list":["post-773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-energy-policy","tag-nuclear-energy","tag-smr","tag-sweden","tag-vattenfall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fastblogtheme.com\/pressnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fastblogtheme.com\/pressnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fastblogtheme.com\/pressnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fastblogtheme.com\/pressnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fastblogtheme.com\/pressnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fastblogtheme.com\/pressnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fastblogtheme.com\/pressnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fastblogtheme.com\/pressnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fastblogtheme.com\/pressnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}