Romina Purmokhtari has been criticized for stating that the government's goal was to commission ten reactors in 20 years. Photo: Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
The Swedish government has quietly backed away from a claim that it will build at least 10 nuclear reactors by 2040 as part of its plan to phase out fossil fuels.
Romina Pourmokhtari, Sweden's climate and environment minister, said earlier this month that Sweden must double its electricity production over the next two decades to reach its climate goals.
The accompanying statement said that «Sweden will need three times the amount of nuclear energy in 20 years.”
But the statement was quickly removed from the government website and replaced with a statement that did not mention the ten new reactors.
Daniel Liljeberg, State Secretary to the Minister of Energy, Business and Industry, said there was no official target to match Ms Purmokhtari's statement.
Too expensive
Mr Liljeberg told Swedish daily Aftonbladet that the government was not set targets or scores at that level of detail.
Insiders claim Ms Purmokhtari «exceeded her authority» when she publicly stated that the government's goal is to have at least ten conventional reactors commissioned in the 2030s and 2040s, according to Aftonbladet.
Environmental experts criticized the government's announcement, saying that the new reactors would be too expensive and would not be able to meet demand quickly enough.The plans marked a dramatic change in the country's current nuclear power capacity, where six reactors currently account for about 30 percent of electricity generation.
In June, Sweden's coalition government adopted a new energy target, changing it from «100 percent renewable» electricity to «100 percent free of fossil fuels», giving the green light to push for a new energy strategy based on expanding the nuclear power grid.
» We need clean electricity.”
“This sets the stage for nuclear power,” Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson told Parliament. «We need more electricity generation, we need clean electricity and we need a stable energy system.»
In 2016, the Swedish parties agreed that new reactors could be built on existing sites, but without subsidies, they were built considered too expensive.
A new centre-right coalition has said new reactors are needed to ensure the transition to a fossil-fuel-free economy and has promised generous loans.
Around 98 percent of Sweden's electricity is already produced by renewable energy sources and nuclear power plants.
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