Switzerland is a small country. 3000 square kilometers of the earth is uninhabitable because of nuclear accidents. That would be almost 1/10 of Switzerland. Probably not a good idea.
Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants
291–300 of 1001 posts
Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is what the oil and nuclear industry propaganda says. The reality is that solar and wind anticorrelate more than you think, demand shifting (e.g. charging the car when it's sunny) is easier than you think, batteries and pumped storage and power2gas are cheaper than you think and nuclear power is way, way, way, way more expensive than you think. Weather based models with actual data say that in Australia you'd ne…
In January 2025, solar generated 1.5TWh of electricity in Germany (in June it generated 10TWh): https://www.energy-charts.info/downloads/electricity_generat... In January 2025, Germany burned about 236 TWh of fossil fuels. You cannot even mostly replace fossil fuels with solar.
Germany will need a total of 1,867 TWh per year in 2030, so an average of 155 TWh/month.
fossil fuels are very inefficient when used in most applications (especially ICE and oil for heating). As countries use more and more electricity instead of fossil fuels to generate motion and heat, total energy demand will decrease accordingly.
Currently, Germany imports almost all of its fossil fuel from abroad. Mainly Norway, USA, Gulf countries, etc. Russia used to play an important role and we paid dearly for that. As we are for the reliance on the US, I guess.
We could actually bring our energy dependence closer to home and make it cheaper by substituting fossil fuel imports with solar + battery with the PV part being distributed across northern African countries. But most likely it will be more convenient (if less efficient) and politically desirable to create a mix of domestic and souther European sources, with specialized stuff like H2/Green NG imports from Iceland and other energy rich places being mixed in.
Also, Germany will (and does) a large share of it energy requirement not from solar, but from wind. Already, renewable energy has very much softened the effects of the Iran war on electricity prices. They never exceeded the highest levels of 2025, while fossil fuels jumped to levels last seen immediately after Russia's invasion of Ukraine and are still elevated over 2025 levels.
Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you need 500 MW, you build one 500 MW reactor, not five 100 MW reactors. They will take more space. As for speed, a 100 MW reactor is not commissioned in 1/5 of the time a 500 MW reactor is.
I think the promise of SMR is that the 1/5th reactor can be built in 1/2 the time. And you build five of them in parallell. And you have your power sources gradually online over about the same time as one ”big bang” build would take. I don’t think it’s going to work out that way, but that’s how it’s being sold.
Even like that, it is not clear-cut.
1/5 in 1/2 the time is still 2.5 shorter per worker, and building in parallel require multiplying expert builders, which is not easy (as it takes time to acquire the expertise and you don't want to learn a trade to build one project and have nothing to do next).
But, yes, I get it is how it is sold. Just that even sold like that, people with common sense should say "wait a minute, that's obviously not that simple".
Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why hasn't Switzerland deployed solar/wind? That seems like a pretty big miss in general. The Swiss grid has almost no wind which is strange for such a mountainous nation. And solar is also quite low which is also strange given how much empty land exists in Switzerland along with it's relatively low latitude.
Regarding wind and mountains. Some perspective from someone from neighboring Tyrol: The reason there is so little wind power: Probably the same reason the western, alpine parts of Austria have basically zero wind power - and why neighbouring Carinthia recently voted in a referendum to ban it completely. People who live in the Alps generally don't like seeing the mountains altered. It is treated almost as sacrilege. A…
Also wind turbines kill birds and bats, it is an actual problem to be put in the balance.
The balance being: do you build a ton of those turbines, or one nuclear plant?
Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants
#295Combined with Italy's change of heart, hopefully approved and put into law before July 2026, this is going to mark the revival of nuclear energy in Europe. Here for it
Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants
#296This still has to pass with the people in a referendum. The discourse on nuclear is still quite chaotic in politics in Switzerland. All left leaning parties and greens parties are strongly against nuclear. I am not expecting informed and civil discussions about this topic. Switzerland has a summer/winter energy problem. We have lots of potential of producing energy in the spring and summer (when our dams are full fro…
I agree with you that you can't rely on hydro alone to power your country. It also seems like you're trying to be reasonable and suggest that any new nuclear production in your country needs to be done as ethically and environmentally friendly as possible. Your statement about "We can't be buying France's nuclear energy all the time" really stood out to me. Are Swiss folks maybe acting a bit NIMBY by not allowing nuc…
Switzerland has nuclear reactors. They just stopped building new ones.
Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants
#297Switzerland seems like a country where they wouldn't have trouble hiring enough very responsible serious people capable of running nuclear plants. Aside from being able to acquire fuel is there any reason they are not near 100% nuclear?
They built their existing nuclear plant in order to hide their nuclear weapons program. So the point really wasn’t energy generation. Nuclear weapons is the main reason countries build nuclear power.
Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hard disagree. As a. swiss voter, this is close to my heart. 50% of all energy in the swiss economy is oil / gas. Of the remaining 50% (electricity), 2/3 are generated by hydro. The remaining ~1/3 by nuclear fission. Swiss electricity prices are sky-high, and the demand for electricity is going to continue to rise. To remain a competitive industrial economy, to transition away from oil/gas, and to offset any potentia…
...You guys have mountains everywhere, which means dirt cheap hydro energy storage for solar and wind? I'm a lftr enthusiast, but everyone needs to keep in mind that fission is just fundamentally economically non-competitive compared to solar and wind. And all those stories about fusion being right around the corner? Yeah, that won't be economically competitive either. I personally am not in favor of closing down exi…
> I'm a lftr enthusiast, but everyone needs to keep in mind that fission is just fundamentally economically non-competitive compared to solar and wind.
We're talking about a world were oil is going away. Switzerland is already using as much hydro as it can. Nuclear is not about replacing hydro, it's about replacing as much as it can of oil.
Even with as much nuclear, hydro, wind and solar as they can, we as a society (not just Switzerland) won't be able to replace oil. We will have less energy, that's a fact. So I don't understand the debate: why not nuclear AND renewables?
Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
its probably my fault for not making myself clear. i mean when the available space is constrained to a specific amount of space that cannot be exceeded. just picking random numbers: i have 1 square mile available. a big reactor takes 4 square miles. i cannot fit a big reactor, despite the bigger reactor being more efficient.
well, I don't think that there is a real problem of "1 square mile is available but not 4 square miles" (this is a different sentence than "there is not enough space"). Especially as small reactor also need to be placed very specifically. So even then, it is still possible that the advantage is for big nuclear plant, as they are still more compact per GWh.
>"1 square mile is available but not 4 square miles" (this is a different sentence than "there is not enough space").
how are these different? one is an example, one is general, but they communicate the exact same point. if you have something that requires 4 sq. miles, you cannot fit it into a place that is 1 sq. mile in size because there is not enough space to fit it.
>as they are still more compact per GWh.
i am really struggling here... if i cannot fit something large, whether the large thing is "more compact per GWh" does not matter. i only have so much physical space to work with. if its too big, its too big.
for a more easily visualized example, you cannot fit a reactor from three mile island into a submarine. efficiency doesnt come into the equation, because physical space constraints get in the way first.
Re: Swiss parliament lifts ban on new nuclear power plants
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
Switzerland has an amazing opportunity to be the standard setter in the EU with nuclear though. The technology is so unbelievably safe and efficient these days. It a real shame to leave it all on the table because of poorly designed and managed disasters.
Did waste management become a solved problem? In Colorado they shut down their last reactor (a very modern, at the time, thorium unit) in 1989 and there is still tons of waste product onsite since Yucca mountain was the designated target for it and it never came online. It's in a river basin and the containment facility is supposedly insanely robust (can withstand 300mph winds, etc..) but it's still there and I think…
Snarky answer: It's simple, they are just going to build the final storage on the border to Germany. Then it will be their problem when it starts leaking.