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Comment by tpmx | Hacker News Reader

So this party gets about 4-5% of the votes. It's a tiny little thing, but they have had an almost catastrophic level of influence on Swedish policy because of even more stupid reasons.

Anyway, what you asked for; here are the high level notes of the insanity. There are lots of insane but largely inconsequential things that I won't focus on.

Key policy writers clearly don't understand the difference between energy and power.

Because of that: Shuts down functioning nuclear power plants "in the name of the environment".

Attempts to replace plannable nuclear power with wind power. ("It produces the same number of GWh annually.")

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> Key policy writers clearly don't understand the difference between energy and power.

Ridiculous. Of course they do.

> Shuts down nuclear power.

You don't know what you are talking about. It was decided decades ago in a referendum that Sweden should move away from nuclear power. A majority of the parties in the parliament has supported this for decades.

Despite that. The government hasn't actively closed down nuclear power. Shut downs have been decided based on the economics of running the plants.

And don't start about the "effektskatten" (a tax on nuclear energy in Sweden), it's older than the green party.

You want nuclear power. They support renewables. That's why you call them insane.

>>You want nuclear power. They support renewables. That's why you call them insane.

Nuclear and renewables are not mutually exclusive. The Swedish green party rejects nuclear. The parent commenter hasn't expressed a rejection of renewables.

Anyway, one can perceive a rejection of a particular energy source as "insane", especially if they are a green party who claim the rise in CO2 levels is the world's most pressing crisis.

The winning proposal of referendum about nuclear power in 1980 never said anything about when the shutdown should be, that was something the politicians added afterwards. What it said was that shutdowns should be done as long it doesn’t undermine employment and welfare.

And because these shutdowns have radically increased electricity prices with unemployment as a result, thus both undermining employment and welfare, it actually violates what the winning proposal stipulated in the referendum.

Furthermore the tax on nuclear power was massively increased three times as consequence of influence of the two green parties, Center party and the Green Party, 2006, 2008 and 2015, and the same time subsidizing renewables, thus making nuclear power not economically sustainable. There was even a referendum in parliament about these latest shutdown with only one vote difference. No, it was intentional.

> these shutdowns have radically increased electricity prices

No they have not. Sweden has been a net exporter of electricity every year since 2010. There is no electricity deficit in Sweden.

Prices have increased because we've become more integrated with the European electricity market. Not because electricity production is lower or more expensive. The energy companies make unprecedented profits because they are able to sell cheaply produced electricity at expensive rates.

The last year prices have increased because of the energy/economic warfare waged between the EU and Russia.

The idea that a couple of Swedish nuclear reactors could alter the whole European energy market significantly is ludicrous.

> It was decided decades ago in a referendum that Sweden should move away from nuclear power

A 1980 referendum where the three options were

1. Decommission the nuclear power, as soon as it is socio-economically feasible.

2. Decommission the nuclear power, as soon as it is socio-economically feasible. Work on reducing electricity use (by e.g. stopping new homes from being built with electric heating), invest in renewable power, and nationalize power generation to be able to control its future.

3. Decommission the nuclear power within 10 years.

So, it's no wonder that "Decommission the nuclear power" won that referendum. Anyone who brings up this referendum as a reason to decommission nuclear power 40 years later is being disingenuous.

My reason for bringing up the referendum was this: Gp insinuated the green party had somehow single handedly shut down Swedish nuclear reactors. This is not the case. The referendum shows scepticism towards nuclear has been the majority opinion in the Swedish parliament for decades. This changed only recently. The green party is one of several parties sceptical towards nuclear energy, they are not some kind of extremists.

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