Nuclear power: Swiss government wants to revise nuclear phase-out

The Swiss government wants to reverse the nuclear phase-out. After the reactor accident at the Japanese nuclear power plant Fukushima in 2011, the Swiss voted to phase out nuclear power in a referendum in 2017. The current power plants should continue to operate as long as they are safe – but new construction has been banned. The government has now proposed overturning this ban.

It is reacting to an initiative that wants to use a new referendum to ensure that all climate-friendly forms of electricity generation – including, according to this view, nuclear power – are permitted again.

Since the vote in 2017, the general conditions have changed, the Federal Council explained, as the seven-member government is called. She refers to the Russian war against Ukraine and the subsequent interruptions in Russian gas supplies.

However, the priority is to expand renewable energies. Buildings, systems and devices should become more energy efficient.

Four nuclear power plants still online

Four nuclear power plants are still in operation in Switzerland: Beznau I and II in Döttingen, around ten kilometers southwest of the German municipality of Waldshut-Tiengen in Baden-Württemberg, as well as Leibstadt and Däniken. The Beznau facilities are among the oldest in the world. They went into operation in 1969 and 1971. The operator, Axpo, announced at the beginning of December that blocks 2032 and 2033 would be shut down. A fifth nuclear power plant in Mühleberg was shut down in 2019 after 47 years.

There are currently no new construction projects, as the Federal Council emphasizes. The Greens have announced resistance. “Nuclear power has no future, our future is renewable energy,” said party president Lisa Mazzone.