Sweden Abandons Zero Emissions Goals as Europe Shrivels
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CV NEWS FEED // Sweden has abandoned its initial goal to be 100% reliant on “renewable energy” by 2045 and is now building more nuclear reactors.
The country’s parliament voted to change its energy target from “100% renewable” to “100% fossil-free.” This is a major reversal after Sweden’s original vote to phase out nuclear power over 40 years ago.
“We need more electricity production, we need clean electricity and we need a stable energy system,” Sweden’s Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson told parliament.
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According to the World Nuclear Association, Sweden had originally introduced the widespread use of nuclear energy in 1965 to offset the uncertainty of oil prices. Multiple reactors were built and the oil shocks of the 1970s reinforced this policy.
However, by 1980 Sweden published a referendum to phase out nuclear reliance by 2010. The decision came after the Three Mile Island accident in the United States, a disaster in which a nuclear reactor melted due to a cooling malfunction.
By 2016, the Swedish government removed the use of subsidies for constructing new nuclear reactors and said it hoped to shut down all the present operating nuclear reactors by 2050.
Reuters reported that nearly 98% of Sweden’s electricity is currently generated from water, nuclear, and wind. The country is expecting electricity demands to double in the coming years. With the new parliamentary decision, reactor construction will once again be eligible for subsidies.
Europe has been moving aggressively in the direction of sole reliance on “renewable energy” through its “net-zero” plans, but the cause has met with numerous failures both throughout the European Union (EU) and in North America.
CatholicVote previously reported that these “green” policies are not only proving to be unaffordable and ineffective, but tend to gravely harm and disadvantage the poor:
According to a 2020 study by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), energy costs as a percentage of income are three times higher for low-income families than for the average American family. While the wealthy consume more energy per capita than the poor, the poor pay more for what they consume.
Spain’s energy poverty has risen the highest of all EU countries. In the winter of 2022, 10% of Spanish households could not adequately heat their homes. Italy is seeing similar rates, where families’ electric bills increased 55% by January 2022. Gas prices also increased by 41.8%.
The British lobbying group Net Zero Watch told the Western Standard that the net-zero efforts championed by the EU are “dangerously expensive and will result in painful reductions in living standards for all but the richest, as well as national weakness, societal instability and the eventual failure of the decarbonization effort.”
