Chapter XII - Closure of Nuclear Power Plants in Germany, Sweden and France: Different Strategies for Different Results

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Among the European Union Member States, three of the countries with the highest levels of electricity produced from nuclear energy in the past decades have either decided to completely phase out this form of electricity generation (Germany and Sweden) or at least to reduce it significantly (France).

One decisive factor motivated these decisions: nuclear accidents, with Three Mile Island and Chernobyl pushing for the phase-out in Sweden and Germany, and Fukushima later reinforcing the German commitment and prompting the decision to reduce the share of nuclear electricity in the electricity mix from 75 to 50 per cent in France by 2025.

These three countries have had different timelines towards their nuclear energy phase-out or reduction, with Sweden embarking on this pathway since the 1980s, Germany taking this decision in the late 1990s, while France took this stance in the early 2010s. These three countries have also adopted different legal mechanisms to reach their targets, with varying results. Sweden had set a phase-out target for 2010 but failed to comply with it due to a lack of political action to use the available legal tools. Since then, Sweden has remained in a limbo concerning nuclear energy, with no set phase-out target but nuclear reactors still shutting down rapidly for economic reasons. Germany had decided on its phase-out to be completed by the early 2020s, before the Merkel Government extended this date, only to come back to the original system six months later, following the Fukushima disaster. It is now progressing swiftly towards its targets thanks to an adapted legal framework which does not require political action once launched. In contrast, France recently postponed its 75–50 per cent by 2025 objective to 2035 due to its lack of action. It also failed to adopt adequate planning tools to schedule the shutdowns and to create an effective legal framework for energy policy-backed closures. As a result, no nuclear reactor has been shut down since the adoption of the 2015 Energy Transition Act setting this target and the government has had to commit to massive compensation for taking the first two reactors offline by 2020.