Swiss cabinet agrees to phase out nuclear power

[Narkis]

From Reuters

* Switzerland to phase out nuclear power

* Last reactor to come offline in 2034

* No new replacement reactors to be built

* Opposition had called for earlier exit

ZURICH, May 25 (Reuters) - The Swiss government decided on Wednesday to phase out nuclear power by 2034 after the Japan disaster shook public confidence in the industry, but said it will not shut any existing power plants prematurely.

The Swiss government suspended the approvals process for three new nuclear power stations in March pending a review into safety after the disaster at Japan's Fukushima plant.

Last weekend 20,000 people rallied against nuclear power -- the largest demonstration of its kind since the 1980s.

On Thursday, the Swiss cabinet agreed to build no more nuclear reactors once the current power plants reach the end of their lifespan, with the oldest set to come offline in 2019, while the newest would remain in operation until 2034.

"Existing nuclear power plants will be closed at the end of their operative life and not replaced by new nuclear power plants," the government said in a statement.

The decision is likely to please business groups who had warned that a premature shut down of Switzerland's nuclear reactors could lead to higher electricity costs and negatively impact the country's energy-hungry manufacturing sector.

But the delay will anger the Greens and the Social Democrats (SP) who had called for nuclear reactors to be closed earlier.

Swiss utility companies Axpo, Alpiq (ALPH.S: Quote) and BKW (BKWN.S: Quote) had expressed an interest in building new nuclear plants and decisions on sites had been expected in mid-2012.

Switzerland plays a pivotal role in central European power markets. Its five nuclear plants -- which produces 40 percent of the Alpine state's electricity -- serves as a basis while its big hydropower sector supplies neighbours in years with high water supply but necessitates imports in dry years.

Neighbouring Germany is due to vote on its expected exit from nuclear power on June 6 and is expected to back a shut down of all its nuclear reactors within a decade.

(Reporting by Caroline Copley; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Congratulations environmentalists. A great victory. Enjoy your new, clean, fossil fuel plants!

[Akhlut]

Isn't Switzerland essentially the perfect place to build nuclear plants? No tornados, no earthquakes, no tsunamis, no chance of invading armies, no terrorism to my knowledge...

Seriously, the combination of minimal risk of natural disasters capable of destroying a nuclear plant and security from outside human threats, as well as a fairly strong regulatory body makes me think that the Swiss can build nuclear plants that could probably be the safest in the world.

[Faqa]

Interesting. Isn't the Swiss government supposed to do a national referendum on things like this?

Because if they have, it would mean that the majority of the country is shaken enough by Japan to want an end to nuclear power. As far as tracking public opinion goes, that's pretty big. And does not spell well for the future.

[Mr Bean]

Also does not spell well since 40% or more of Sweden's power is nuke generated and there only alternatives are coal. Geothermal is possible but terrain means unless you want to give up a city or two it means coal plants.

What a great safe improvement.

[TheHammer]

Before we worry too much about this, lets realize that things change. While the Japan disaster no doubt has set back Nuclear power, in five years this decision might be revisited and reversed.

[Faqa]

Not exactly. People were already leery of nuclear power. The first association they had was "Chernobyl", if it wasn't "mushroom cloud". Nuke plants only existed at all on sheer inertia.

Cancel them now, and any future decision you make has to be actively creating something nuclear as opposed to preserving the status quo. In most Western democracies, that is political suicide. And that's just to keep what we have working, never mind the new nuclear plants we will need.

[Serafina]

Before we worry too much about this, lets realize that things change. While the Japan disaster no doubt has set back Nuclear power, in five years this decision might be revisited and reversed.

Even IF the trend of the last few decades (nuclear power steadily becoming more and more disliked) suddenly reverses for no reason at all - do you really think that it will be that easy to reverse the changes being made now?
Building a new nuclear power plant costs billions and takes a very long time - and specialists who will get rarer because their talents are no longer needed. Not to mention specialized equipment and industrial infrastructure.

So even if your idiotic prediction is true and nuclear power will see a new hype in, say, ten years, the damage that is being done now will be very hard to reverse.

[TheHammer]

Before we worry too much about this, lets realize that things change. While the Japan disaster no doubt has set back Nuclear power, in five years this decision might be revisited and reversed.

Even IF the trend of the last few decades (nuclear power steadily becoming more and more disliked) suddenly reverses for no reason at all - do you really think that it will be that easy to reverse the changes being made now?
Building a new nuclear power plant costs billions and takes a very long time - and specialists who will get rarer because their talents are no longer needed. Not to mention specialized equipment and industrial infrastructure.

So even if your idiotic prediction is true and nuclear power will see a new hype in, say, ten years, the damage that is being done now will be very hard to reverse.

I made no "idiotic prediction", nor did I say it would be "easy" to restart. I'm merely saying that this isn't the death of Nuclear power. Even if the popular trend in Europe is to kill the industry, it will still go on in other countries and in most modern militaries. Eventually, dwindling fossil fuels will force countries to revisit the issue whether it is popular or not.

[[R_H]]

Haha, I hope everyone enjoys their even more overpriced electricity, and even more overpriced products (those which are domestically produced). Maybe the those who jumped on the envirochucklefuck bandwagon will be singing a different tune in a few years time.

Isn't Switzerland essentially the perfect place to build nuclear plants? No tornados, no earthquakes, no tsunamis, no chance of invading armies, no terrorism to my knowledge...

Seriously, the combination of minimal risk of natural disasters capable of destroying a nuclear plant and security from outside human threats, as well as a fairly strong regulatory body makes me think that the Swiss can build nuclear plants that could probably be the safest in the world.

Earthquakes happen (a small one occured because of an experiment with geothermal, interestingly enough), but big ones are extremely rare. The last big one was in the 14th century, but that doesn't stop the envirochucklefucks from using that to fear monger.

Also does not spell well since 40% or more of Sweden's power is nuke generated and there only alternatives are coal. Geothermal is possible but terrain means unless you want to give up a city or two it means coal plants.

What a great safe improvement.

Switzerland, not Sweden. Public opinion towards even clean coal is worse than nuclear power. A lot of power comes from hydro as well. Ok, great, replace the nukes with renewables, a lot fucking easier said than done.

[Simon_Jester]

Isn't Switzerland essentially the perfect place to build nuclear plants? No tornados, no earthquakes, no tsunamis, no chance of invading armies, no terrorism to my knowledge...

Seriously, the combination of minimal risk of natural disasters capable of destroying a nuclear plant and security from outside human threats, as well as a fairly strong regulatory body makes me think that the Swiss can build nuclear plants that could probably be the safest in the world.

On the other hand, the Swiss are also a very small country with limited habitable land; a nuclear accident in Switzerland could render a large fraction of the entire nation uninhabitable.

[Mr Bean]

]On the other hand, the Swiss are also a very small country with limited habitable land; a nuclear accident in Switzerland could render a large fraction of the entire nation uninhabitable.

Uninhabitable? Me thinks you exaggerate, the worst accident on record Chernobyl which had no containment zone and blew up and dumped a ton of pollutants into the surrounding area is still liveable and the zone itself is only 30 km's wide. In Switzerland I'd image it would be a lot less due to Mountains, hills and ridges messing with wind and rain tracks.

One forgets the 50 kmh zone for Fukushimia is the goverment playing it very safe. The danger area is less than half a kilometer around the plant itself at present.

[Sea Skimmer]

The Swiss ban cars in a number of towns; they likely would have never gotten into nuclear power in the first place except for the fact that they had interest in building nuclear weapons for a good chunk of the cold war. Fukushimia has had the advantage of dumping all its radioactive leaks out into the ocean; this does not work in a small land locked nation with only one major river.

[Mr Bean]

The Swiss ban cars in a number of towns; they likely would have never gotten into nuclear power in the first place except for the fact that they had interest in building nuclear weapons for a good chunk of the cold war. Fukushimia has had the advantage of dumping all its radioactive leaks out into the ocean; this does not work in a small land locked nation with only one major river.

So build it next to a mine, nothing a half mile shaft can't fix.
Or simple switch to smaller scale pebble bed style designs where if worse comes to worse you empty the fuel then bury the reactor it full.

[Akhlut]

Isn't Switzerland essentially the perfect place to build nuclear plants? No tornados, no earthquakes, no tsunamis, no chance of invading armies, no terrorism to my knowledge...

Seriously, the combination of minimal risk of natural disasters capable of destroying a nuclear plant and security from outside human threats, as well as a fairly strong regulatory body makes me think that the Swiss can build nuclear plants that could probably be the safest in the world.

On the other hand, the Swiss are also a very small country with limited habitable land; a nuclear accident in Switzerland could render a large fraction of the entire nation uninhabitable.

They also have a shitload of mountains; if you bury a nuclear plant deep in the heart of the Swiss Alps, a meltdown has a very limited amount of area it can contaminate.

[[R_H]]

Isn't Switzerland essentially the perfect place to build nuclear plants? No tornados, no earthquakes, no tsunamis, no chance of invading armies, no terrorism to my knowledge...

Seriously, the combination of minimal risk of natural disasters capable of destroying a nuclear plant and security from outside human threats, as well as a fairly strong regulatory body makes me think that the Swiss can build nuclear plants that could probably be the safest in the world.

On the other hand, the Swiss are also a very small country with limited habitable land; a nuclear accident in Switzerland could render a large fraction of the entire nation uninhabitable.

They also have a shitload of mountains; if you bury a nuclear plant deep in the heart of the Swiss Alps, a meltdown has a very limited amount of area it can contaminate.

There are plenty of military installations, many of which have been deactivated, maybe those could be used?

It's not unprecendented, back in the 60s and early 70s there was a research reactor in a cavern (Payerène?), anyways, there was an incident and they ended up sealing off the cavern.

[Sea Skimmer]

So build it next to a mine, nothing a half mile shaft can't fix.
Or simple switch to smaller scale pebble bed style designs where if worse comes to worse you empty the fuel then bury the reactor it full.

Its not an issue of the fuel, its an issue of the thousands of tons of radioactive water that would be created in a major accidents. Japan dumped hoards of that into the ocean and is now filling up three thousand ton capacity barges with it, with no end in sight.

[Mr Bean]

So build it next to a mine, nothing a half mile shaft can't fix.
Or simple switch to smaller scale pebble bed style designs where if worse comes to worse you empty the fuel then bury the reactor it full.

Its not an issue of the fuel, its an issue of the thousands of tons of radioactive water that would be created in a major accidents. Japan dumped hoards of that into the ocean and is now filling up three thousand ton capacity barges with it, with no end in sight.

And not all nuclear plants require tens of thousands of galleons of water for cooling.

[Sea Skimmer]

And not all nuclear plants require tens of thousands of galleons of water for cooling.

They all do if you get actual cracks in containment, requiring constantly dumping more water into the top only to have it drain out the bottom which is what happened and still occurring as we speak in Japan. It’s unlikely in a place like Switzerland, but it’s also not like the creation of the Alps could have been earthquake free. A pebble bed can survive on natural circulation... only as long as containment is not lost. Loose it and all the gas will blast out and you have a very serious problem.

[Mr Bean]

And not all nuclear plants require tens of thousands of galleons of water for cooling.

They all do if you get actual cracks in containment, requiring constantly dumping more water into the top only to have it drain out the bottom which is what happened and still occurring as we speak in Japan. It’s unlikely in a place like Switzerland, but it’s also not like the creation of the Alps could have been earthquake free. A pebble bed can survive on natural circulation... only as long as containment is not lost. Loose it and all the gas will blast out and you have a very serious problem.

Yes but with a Pebble bed it's quite possible double or triple seal the containment and if worse comes to work use robots to pack it on a rail car to be dumped down the aforementioned half mile mine shaft.

*Edit and also in Pebble bed designs there exists the possibly of draining the containment into larger containers. There exists the ability to drain the pebbles into special cool down chambers as the fewer pebbles in the area the faster the reaction shuts down by itself. There was a German design floating out there for secondary containment that were in essence big caskets which the pebbles could be emptied into then removed and cooled.

*Edit 3
Six separate chambers as in each chamber got 1/6th of the total pebbles.

[Sea Skimmer]

Are they really that small that you could move one on a railcar? I would think it'd be more the kind of thing that requires a giant twenty axle truck and sawing down all the telephone poles along the route. Anyway you'll never reach that final disassembly phase until after containment is restored, the reactor cooled down and all fuel and core debris are removed. No ones going to try to move and dump the thing with the fuel still inside. That would be near HAB level safety non standards.

[Gil Hamilton]

I was talking to one of the professors here, who is Swiss. We came to the agreement that Switzerland seems committed to eventually becoming dependent on cheap French nuclear power. They can't even power CERN locally on their own; they import most of the power for the collider their from France and it shuts down when France's power requirements for the summer pick up.

[Patrick Degan]

Before we worry too much about this, lets realize that things change. While the Japan disaster no doubt has set back Nuclear power, in five years this decision might be revisited and reversed.

Even IF the trend of the last few decades (nuclear power steadily becoming more and more disliked) suddenly reverses for no reason at all - do you really think that it will be that easy to reverse the changes being made now?
Building a new nuclear power plant costs billions and takes a very long time - and specialists who will get rarer because their talents are no longer needed. Not to mention specialized equipment and industrial infrastructure.

So even if your idiotic prediction is true and nuclear power will see a new hype in, say, ten years, the damage that is being done now will be very hard to reverse.

Possibly. On the other hand, countries like China and Brazil as well as Russia are going to push forward on their nuclear development; they need the reactors to both meet growing demand and to achieve energy independence. Likely that, in a few decades time, when the current antinuclear wave has abated and the countries that phased out their reactors discover that they actually need nuclear power but have long since lost the infrastructure for it as well as their corps of nuclear engineers to age, China, Russia and Brazil will suddenly find themselves getting very rich filling orders for export reactors, plant construction and expertise.

[Mr Bean]

Are they really that small that you could move one on a railcar? I would think it'd be more the kind of thing that requires a giant twenty axle truck and sawing down all the telephone poles along the route. Anyway you'll never reach that final disassembly phase until after containment is restored, the reactor cooled down and all fuel and core debris are removed. No ones going to try to move and dump the thing with the fuel still inside. That would be near HAB level safety non standards.

Pebble beds scale real well in some regards and not in others. They scale down great to the point that a pebble bed destroyer is possible but scaling up not as great. There's a maximum size you can make them and retain a high energy production efficiency. While most conventional nuclear plants are 1 to eight reactors a Pebble bed facility is typically four to fifty depending on your power demands and what size you want to make them. A typical rail car can carry one of the smaller ones, fuel and all. The containment vessels plus fuel of anything up to a hundred megawatt producing plant can be moveable on standard cars. Not all the support and power generation parts which are kept external, but the raw fuel container and cooling loops can be moved.

Keep in mind there are six separate designs, the oldest German design, the new German design, the America design, the improved South African design(Based off the old German style) plus the under-wraps Chinese design which itself is based off the oldest German design with elements from the American design. The South Africa design are the ones I'm quoting for moving the containment vessel fueled and cooled on standard gauge rail cars (Cooling and backup gens take up an extra two cars but the containment vessel fits on one)

[Magis]

Possibly. On the other hand, countries like China and Brazil as well as Russia are going to push forward on their nuclear development; they need the reactors to both meet growing demand and to achieve energy independence.

Brazil's push forward is a shame, because their program is frankly dangerous. Also, it's almost certainly motivated by ambitions to develop nuclear weapons.

[ThomasP]

This may be a stupid question, but where does this anti-nuke trend leave more modern designs? I'm thinking things like the Hyperion units, or thorium-cycle reactors, or pretty much anything Wikipedia lists here.

Green Party types seem to have a hate-on for the 70s-style plants and then use the (now) three nameable disasters as a basis for getting rid of all nuclear. I'd assume that their opposition doesn't stop at the Monty Burns plants, but it'd be a shame to cut the development of what appear to be much safer* designs because of hysteria based on 50 year old reactors.

Of course as noted, this leaves the BRIC in a much better position in two to three decades. Are they going to carry the next-gen designs forward or are they mainly looking at lump o' uranium reactors?

* As if three major accidents over the lifespan of the industry were unsafe, but you get my drift.