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Paper short abstract

This presentation discusses the historical rise and fall of nuclear energy in Sweden. In particular, it seeks to explain the paradoxical decline of Swedish nuclear power in the 21st century amid high hopes for a "nuclear renaissance" that could combat climate change and rising electricity prices.

Paper long abstract

In the postwar decades Sweden invested heavily in nuclear research. In the 1970s and 1980s the country rose to become one of the world’s most “nuclearized” nations. Between 1972 and 1985, Swedish electricity companies took into operation 12 large nuclear reactors, which at their height produced half of all Swedish electricity. Between 1999 and 2020, however, six of the reactors were closed permanently. The remaining six are also slowly approaching the end of their lives. This “rise and fall” of Swedish nuclear energy remains poorly understood. The presentation discusses possible explanations, scrutinizing the making and the unmaking of the Swedish nuclear age – against the backdrop of high hopes in present-day Swedish politics for a national “nuclear renaissance” that might combat climate change and skyrocketing electricity prices. The presentation starts from the hypothesis that, if we want to explain the “rise and fall” of Swedish nuclear energy, it is not sufficient to analyse the public debate and the political tug-of-war for and against nuclear energy, which has been the main focus in most earlier research. Instead, we must analyse how these social-political trends co-evolved with the internal dynamics of the Swedish nuclear industry and, in particular, with developments “on the ground” at each of Sweden’s four large nuclear power plant sites.