Federal Councilor Simonetta Sommaruga (62) handed over the keys of the department to future energy minister Albert Rösti (55) on Friday. That pleases the nuclear proponents in Switzerland. They hope that the SVP judge lifts the ban on new nuclear power plants. Because they are convinced: without nuclear energy there is no security of supply.
In France, a country with nuclear energy, people are no longer so sure: half of the nuclear power plant is down. The government of Emmanuel Macron (45) has reactivated two coal-fired power stations to compensate for the outage. But that is not enough. For the first time in history, France, with its 56 nuclear reactors, is becoming a net importer of electricity from Germany – which also has to draw coal-fired power plants from reserves.
The debacle of the French nuclear power plant also affects Switzerland, which annually sources 5,500 gigawatt hours of nuclear energy from the neighboring country. This corresponds to the production of the Beznau nuclear power plant. The bulk of France’s electricity – 3,500 gigawatt hours – comes from the Bugey and Cattenom reactors. But their production is at a record low. The damaged reactors only produce half the usual amount of electricity.
Now the energy company Axpo has to get the missing juice from Bugey and Cattenom elsewhere – on the market, at high prices. Chances are that the back-up electricity will come from coal-fired power plants. The French nuclear power failures mean not only costs, but also CO2 emissions.
You are afraid of answers
Axpo avoids specific questions about this. The company says: “We buy the electricity at market conditions.” Axpo does not know from which power plants the electricity comes.
Fabian Lüscher (34) heads the Atomic Energy Department of the Swiss Energy Foundation. He says: “Nuclear power plant failures are a central problem in the current electricity crisis. It is all the more alarming that the cluster risk of nuclear power plants is propagated by the new energy minister as a guarantee for security of supply.”
The French president is not deterred by the failures: Emmanuel Macron has announced the construction of six more nuclear power plants. But first the Flamanville reactor must finally be connected to the grid – twelve years later than planned and, at 20 billion euros, six times more expensive than budgeted.
Similar problems arise elsewhere: the cost of the Hinkley Point 3 British oven has increased tenfold. The Finnish reactor Olkiluoto-3 is three times more expensive than budgeted – and will be commissioned 14 years later than planned.