A group of Swiss MPs has created ‘Stop Blackouts,’ which will launch a petition calling for a change in the country’s energy strategy to ensure enough power supplies while keeping nuclear in the mix.
Switzerland wants to shutdown five nuclear reactors, following a 2017 decision triggered by safety concerns following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, and has already shut down one plant.
The Swiss constitution can be modified by referendum if 100,000 signatures are collected within 18 months, but the process takes years.
Stop Blackouts has stated that it will launch its petition on Tuesday. Five of the group’s six committee members are MPs from the centre and right.
‘Until recently, Switzerland had safe and nearly CO2-free electricity production: the environmentally and climate-friendly combination of hydro and nuclear power is to be abandoned for no reason at all,’ Stop Blackouts declared on its website.
‘We cannot live without nuclear power plants,’ Vanessa Meury, president of the Stop Blackouts group and the only non-politician on the committee, told the Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung.
The proposed constitutional amendment would make Bern officially accountable for ensuring energy supply through ‘any form of climate-friendly electrical generation.’
On Tuesday, the government is due to reveal a strategy to deal with anticipated energy shortages caused by the Ukraine crisis, which will prioritise voluntary consumer reduction. Switzerland produces more energy than it consumes, yet it is dependent on neighbours for imports during the winter.
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