Monday, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson tells reporters that national legislation will be changed to allow for construction of more nuclear power plants throughout the country.

”We will now amend legislation to permit construction of more reactors at many locations,” Kristersson says at a press conference Wednesday.

This new legislation on nuclear plants is meant to enter into force in March 2024, the aim being to increase electricity output and make Sweden less dependent on imported energy. 

Today, the nation has three active atomic energy stations, Fonsmark, Oskarshamn and Ringhals.

One plant, Barsebäck located north of the city Malmö in the country’s southern Scania county, is now in the process of being demolished section by section.

This heralded policy shift, says Swedish Minister of Climate and Environment Romina Pourmokhtari, will allow construction of small reactors at locations not presently hosting fission plants.

”We are amending legislation to accommodate new technology,” she says. 

When asked where such new reactors will be built in Sweden, neither Kristersson nor Pourmokhtari are willing to comment.

”We will see. Many factors require consideration,” Pourmokhtari deflects, however venturing that ”the industry will be the best at deciding the matter.”

This policy U-turn is tied to the nation’s general election in September, when the Swedish right-wing, including Kristersson’s liberal-conservative Moderate Party and far-right national conservative Sweden Democrats, won the majority of parliamentary mandates.

At a national referendum in 1980, the country’s electorate decided that Sweden’s nuclear power must be discontinued.

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