The country of the wind compresses its historical refusal to nuclear energy. Denmark, one of the European leaders in the adoption of renewable energies, considers ending the prohibition that has weighed on this technology for four decades. The Government of the Nordic Country has announced this week that it will study, for about a year, the possibilities, the potential and risks of incorporating nuclear energy as a complement to wind and solar.
Denmark, cradle of marine wind energy, is the member of the European Union that covers a higher percentage of its demand for electricity with renewables: 88.4% last year, according to the data of the community statistical agency, Eurostat. It is also the rich nation in which wind has a greater weight in its matrix, according to data from the International Energy Agency (IE): the wind covered almost 60% of internal consumption last year. From that figure, almost half came from parks anchored to the bed of the North Sea, a technology that has not stopped growing in recent years in northern Europe.
The veto that Denmark imposed on nuclear energy in 1985 – a year before Chernobyl disaster (Ukraine), an accident that occurred just over 1,000 kilometers in a straight line from Copenhagen and that was a real shock social throughout Europe – it seems more fragile than ever. “We all know that, of course, we cannot have an electrical system based solely on solar and wind energy; there must be something that supports it,” said Danish Minister of Climate and Energy, Lars Aagard, on Wednesday against Parliament.
The goal, Aagard came to say, is to complement the production of its vast wind farms, both terrestrial and marine. Also of their photovoltaic plants, which yield less than in southern Europe for a purely mathematical issue: sun hours are significantly minor. Now, Denmark pulls gas and coal – long the most polluting source – and, also, of electrical imports through the cables that unite with Norway and Sweden.
Nuclear reactors do not contribute, however, the flexibility given by combined gas cycles or batteries. The latter, a clearly booming technology, whose cost low year after year and that are already massively installing countries such as Germany or Australia, as well as several US states, with California and Texas at the head. The reality is that, even adding the cost of storage, renewables are already cheaper than nuclear in most of the world.
The Danish Energy Minister has ruled out, however, the construction of conventional nuclear power plants (around a power gigavatio) and emphasized modern technologies, such as SMR. These are small modular reactors, three times smaller – and remarkably cheaper – and that are still in the development and testing phase. Being still mere prototypes, years will still go until they enter service.
“The hope is that these new types of reactors can provide us with cheap and free energy (carbon dioxide) that can be integrated into our energy system. But there is also a very long list of safety, preparation and regulation issues that must be addressed,” said Aagard, who influenced the issue of waste elimination.
No reactors
Denmark has never had a nuclear reactor in service, although three, small, for research purposes. It was in the fifties, when the Nordic country had a despicable R&D activity in that field.
The Prime Minister, the Social Democrat Mette Frederiksen, already advanced last week that she was willing to address “without prejudices” the possibility of – as several parties of the conservative opposition claim – to end the prohibition to the production of nuclear energy. In the seventies, the Social Democratic Party itself was one of the main drivers of the Nuclear vetothat came to have a wide popular support.
Today, however, there are much less who advocates keeping the veto. The growing support among the Danish population to the introduction of nuclear energy is reflected in opinion polls. The two most recent-carried out in January and last week by the Voxmeter and MegaFon pollsters-although with somewhat disparate results, they show that around half of the adults (between 42%and 56%, according to the source) is clearly in favor of the nuclear, in front of a quarter (26%-27%) that bets that the prohibition remains in force.
Turn in Sweden … and cost overruns in Finland
The dismantling, in 2005, of the Swedish nuclear power plant in Bersaback, located less than 20 kilometers from the Danish capital, was a reason for celebration in the Jutland Peninsula. In recent years, Sweden has reversed its energy policy with a clear commitment to nuclear. The Coalition Government of the Scandinavian country – formed in 2022 by conservatives, liberals and Christian -democrats, and sustained in Parliament for the extreme right – intends to triple nuclear production throughout the next two decades. In March, the Swedish Executive presented a bill that includes state loans and a minimum price guaranteed by electricity produced to boost the construction of new nuclear reactors.
In another country in the Nordic environment, Finland, the nuclear reactor Olkiluoto 3, with 1,600 megawatts, the most powerful in the EU, began its activity in April 2023, 14 years later than planned and with an important added financial load: the initial budget ended up tripling. A double ballast that is also suffering from the United Kingdom at the Hinkley Point C central, which already accumulates more than six years of delay with respect to the original calendar and millmillonarious costs.
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