The new high-speed trains

Since the late 1980s, Sweden has endlessly debated the construction of new high-speed rail lines. The discussion has waxed and waned over the decades, with successive governments promising bold action only to be worn down by institutional fatigue and indecision. With a population of ten million, the economic case has always been uncertain, and investments in high-speed rail only really make sense – if at all – when conceived as part of a broader strategy to free up capacity for freight and regional traffic on existing lines.

Unfortunately, there is every indication that nuclear power has become the new high-speed trains. After making daring promises in the run-up to the 2022 election, the centre-right government has so far delivered little more than paperwork and an extremely costly financing framework which may – or may not – eventually result in a marginal addition of nuclear capacity on Väröhalvön, next to the existing Ringhals nuclear power plant. With a possible change of government this autumn, and the Swedish Green Party making it clear that they will not participate in a government that builds nuclear power, the prospects for new nuclear once again look deeply uncertain.

It would all be simply tragicomic were it not for the urgency of the climate crisis and the need to displace fossil fuels – something that, historically, only nuclear power (together with hydropower) has been capable of achieving at scale.