Moreover, the nuclear situation will soon be better, because all or some of the ten remaining reactors are being upgraded to such an extent that they can more then replace the energy lost due to the illogical closing of two of the three reactors at Bärsebäck (in Malmö). But despite the steady deterioration of the Swedish welfare state, and even more depressing the fall in the quality of life in this country due to entry into the European Union (EU), it might happen that at any time another giant step will be taken in the Swedish nuclear retreat.
Lenin once remarked that socialism should be defined as communism plus electricity. The implicit assumption in Sweden after the social democrats assumed power was that something called the ‘Swedish welfare state’ was social democracy plus electricity. The way this was pictured as working is straightforward, and turns on mainstream economic logic: a high electricity intensity, combined with a high level of industrial investment and the technological skill created by a modern educational system, would lead to a high industrial productivity, which in turn would result in a steady increase in employment, personal real incomes, and almost all the components of social security (such as health care and pensions).
This is exactly what happened, and a relevant question of late is whether a century of Social Democratic aspirations can be kept afloat if some of the most modern electricity generating facilities in the world are scrapped for what are clearly short-term political considerations. (Before continuing it should be emphasized that the relation between ‘socialism’ and Swedish social democracy is about the same as that between the words and music of a conventional rap standard and a Cole Porter ‘evergreen’.)
For some obscure reason, in l978 all the major political parties in Sweden agreed that the growing controversy over the future of nuclear energy should be settled by holding a national referendum. The electorate was subsequently asked to choose between nuclear acceptance, the more-or-less immediate closing of as many nuclear facilities as possible, or a gradual phase-out that was to be complete by 2010. Confronted by a whirlwind of neurotic fictions launched by a technophobic nuclear opposition, the latter option was chosen. Although not fully comprehended by most Swedes even now, a key factor in that incomprehensible burlesque was the assumption that the rising prosperity of Sweden could be maintained even if the country’s nuclear assets were massacred.
To a considerable extent, that ill-advised assumption no longer exists, which is why a large majority of Swedish voters are no longer hostile to nuclear. In the UK, on the other hand, some polls indicate that most voters want to see nuclear and coal-based installations phased out in favor of renewables, while the government of that country desires a nuclear revival. This is because, as Prime Minister Blair points out, without such a departure it will be impossible to achieve large reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2). And not only Mr Blair: James Lovelock, a founder of Greenpeace, ostensibly proclaimed that “Only nuclear power can halt global warming,” (which did not boost his status with the leadership of that highly vocal organization).
The difference between the two nations is that no country has made as great an effort to introduce renewables as Sweden, but even so the result in terms of energy being generated is slight. Consequently, as compared to UK residents, Swedes have come to realize that while technically it is possible to greatly increase the use of renewables, the benefit-cost outcome is unacceptable.
One of the explanations for the often labile situation with Swedish nuclear politics is that a large percentage of the journalists and economists who maintain good relations with the government and its advisors are without even the slightest glimmer of how energy functions in a modern economy, and even worse, they are singularly uninterested in curing this deficiency. Energy economics is either not taught in the universities, or taught badly, and the exact manner in which the availability of electricity influences economic progress has never been properly understood, although a brilliant introduction to this subject can be found in a non-technical article by the late Samuel Schurr (1988).
Concentrating on the United States, Schurr demonstrated that the total energy use in what he termed the “business sector” more than doubled over the period 1920-73, and in relation to capital (= machinery + structures) increased by 50%. The observed slight fall in the energy intensity of output was then shown to be due to technical change (largely motivated by increasingly energy intensive inputs) raising output by so much that, percentage-wise, output increased by more than energy consumption. (And it was from the failure to understand the details of this phenomenon that Swedes were forced to confront the bogus argument that output could be maintained or increased even if the input of energy declined.) He also hypothesized that electrification meant a flexibility in industrial operations that would have been impossible with any other form of energy, and this was the cardinal reason for productivity growth. Equally as important, electricity would play an indispensable role in the employment of items such as computers, whose revolutionary promise was just being realized.
In Sweden, at that time, this kind of thinking was not encouraged, and I can recall students who attained the highest grades, and proceeded to rewarding careers, expressing a belief that the way to confront higher energy prices was to change the aggregate industrial structure of the country in such a way as make it less energy intensive. They provided no examples, but had they been questioned late at night, after the cognac had gone around the table a few times, it is conceivable that they might have put in a good word for the social and economic splendors of some stone-age province on the rim of the Kalihari. It is here that we can obtain an insight into why economics is ‘easy but subtle’, to paraphrase the physicist Paul Ehrenfest, because while it was easy for those high achievers, it was very definitely too subtle.
On the basis of the evidence, an intelligent economist living in complete isolation from the ‘real world’ – which, unfortunately, is a world in which security problems cannot be ignored – might suggest that the best strategy for stabilizing or reducing the inventory of atmospheric greenhouse gases is a massive program of nuclear construction in North America and e.g. Western Europe, and it should be commenced as soon as possible. The present analysis is definitely in favor of more nuclear, but at the same time it seems optimal to wait until the security problem assumes another dimension before anything resembling a “massive” commitment is undertaken.
THE SWEDISH NUCLEAR PAST AND ITS MANY ENIGMAS
Before taking a closer look at the present day Swedish nuclear scene, it might be useful to understand that a large part of the antipathy toward nuclear energy in Sweden (and perhaps elsewhere) has its origin in something called ‘Den Kungliga Svenska Avundsjukan’ (or The Royal Swedish Envy). The envy in this case was directed toward the scientists and technicians who – in the words of Professor (and Nobel Laureate) Gunnar Myrdal – were in the coveted (but unforgivable) position of “living to work instead of working to live”. There was no question in the minds of the pseudo-intelligentsia in the universities and liberal professions that these arrogant winners (or ‘school stars’ as I heard one of the high-and-mighty at Stockholm University call them) had to be put in their place, which finally happened when a law was passed that forbid scientific research aimed at developing more efficient reactors. (These new reactors included ‘safe’ reactors of e.g. the PIUS design, which would have made accidents of the type advertised by the nuclear opposition impossible.)
Observing the Swedish nuclear past provides a valuable but generally unappreciated insight into the almost certain arrival of what Professor Ken-Ichi Matsui (l998) calls the “Seventh Energy Revolution”, which he believes will be based on nuclear energy. When the first oil price shock took place, six reactors were rushed to completion, while work on four others commenced, and planning began for two others. I think it possible to predict that when world oil output peaks in a decade or so, a similar phenomenon will be observed everywhere, because among other things an enormous quantity of electricity will be necessary to avoid a partial deterioration of the transportation system. In a country like Sweden (where for many politicians and academics, plane tickets are more precious than good health), neither nuclear haters nor nuclear lovers have the slightest intention of losing access to ‘the friendly skies’ or the ‘open roads’: the open roads leading e.g. to the skiing and partying at Åre and Riksgränsen.
Something else that is not widely known is that as early as 1945, informal planning had started in Sweden on the civilian application of nuclear energy. By 1954 the first pilot installation was ready, and ten years later the highly efficient “Agesta” nuclear reactor was in operation, providing a small amount of electricity and heat. Although the next nuclear project – the ‘Marviken’ reactor – turned out badly, there is no doubt that Sweden could have produced a large reactor about the same time that the first successful commercial installation opened in the UK. The decision to build the reactors mentioned in the previous paragraph was probably one of the most important in modern Swedish history, and when discussing Swedish technical skill it might also be appropriate to mention that during the l960s, one million new housing units were constructed (in a country of slightly less than 8 million people). This demonstrates what is possible in a technologically advanced country if the political will exists.
According to Torsten Gustafson, chief scientific advisor to the Social Democratic government of Tage Erlander, there was a positive attitude toward nuclear energy in Sweden until about 1970. After that time, two of the five major political parties in Sweden – the ‘farmer party’ and the communists – came to the crank conclusion that the ‘friendly atom’ was bad for Sweden and just about everyone else, although there were a number of opponents to nuclear energy in all political and social factions. There is no rational explanation for the strong aversion developed by any political grouping to nuclear energy, since e.g. farmers and industrial workers were clearly important benefactors of inexpensive electricity.
This situation could probably be compared to something like the ‘tulip bubble’ in Holland in the 17th century, when intelligent people suddenly and inexplicably discerned enormously valuable qualities in the humble tulip, and paid fantastic prices for a commodity that eventually turned out to have no commercial and little intrinsic worth. The commodity in the present case is the belief in nuclear disengagement, which might provide a large slice of the voting public with a tangible psychological satisfaction in the short run, but in the long run would deprive Swedish industries and households of the comparatively low-priced access to an indispensable input.
Something can now be said about the difference between the cost and price of electricity, since deregulation and open borders are progressively worsening the situation for energy-intensive buyers of electricity in Sweden, which includes a key portion of the industrial sector, as well as perhaps the most energy intensive households in the world. (The latter is due not only to the modernity of Swedish households, but also the weather.)
The cost of a nuclear plant can in some respects be compared to the expenses associated with the purchase of an automobile. There are acquisition costs, possession costs, and operational costs. What about the costs highlighted in your economics textbook – fixed and variable costs. In reality these are somewhat ambivalent, since they can and are used in several conceptual senses, but even so they can easily fit into the present non-technical discussion if desired. If you could buy a nuclear plant exactly the way that you buy a car, then you can speak of a fixed cost (for the reactor and accessories, and the structure housing it), and possession and operating costs that as in the case of an auto involve fuel, maintenance, taxes, etc. The mechanics of this procedure are spelled out at an elementary level in my energy economics textbook (2000), where it is explained how an estimate of these costs over a period of time are discounted back to the present. Given an output program over the same period, the expected unit cost of electricity is the total discounted cost divided by the total output.
There is no point in going over the details of this exercise here, however I can state with considerable confidence that if this procedure were better understood, it would be difficult to claim that the natural gas network now being constructed on the Swedish west coast makes the slightest economic sense.
The main advantage with nuclear as compared to gas is in the cost of fuel: gas has been expensive relative to uranium, and this expense placed gas at a disadvantage (for carrying the base load), although the capital cost of a nuclear facility was much greater. When, however, combined cycle gas-burning equipment became widely available, and in addition the price of gas fell, it was claimed by persons who should have known better that gas would always be much more economical than nuclear (for generating both the base and peak loads). With the price of gas in the vicinity of 3.5 dollars per million Btu (= $3.5/mBtu), it was easy to argue that gas was a better economic bet than nuclear.
In Sweden, of course, if an accurate (and comprehensive) calculation had been made, and there was less technophobia in and around the political establishment, that claim would have been openly ridiculed, because it was obvious to many of us even then that the infinite supply of gas that many so-called energy experts were thinking of was indisputably finite – as everybody is either finding out or will find out; and since environmental considerations dealing with CO2 were becoming more important, nuclear displays a clear (social) cost advantage over gas.
Another example might be useful here. The first time that I taught in Australia it was widely advertised that the Maui gas field in New Zealand was virtually inexhaustible. The reserve situation is quite different at the present time, however that field is still spoken of as being extremely valuable. Not, it should be emphasized, for producing natural gas, but for storing – or ‘sequestering’ as they say – as much as possible of the CO2 that will be generated in the coal-based generating facilities that will eventually be required later in the century to provide New Zealand with an increasing fraction of its electricity. It can also be mentioned that the New Zealand electricity deregulation, which at one time was praised as the most satisfactory in the world, was very likely based on beliefs about the availability of gas that were completely illusory. I suspect that this was an important factor in establishing a natural gas price that was probably a great deal lower than what in economic theory is sometimes termed the ‘scarcity price’ (or the theoretically correct market price).
Something else that deserves to be referred to is that a very large amount of low-grade uranium is located in Sweden: ignoring costs, and on the basis of its energy content, Swedish uranium has considerably more to offer than all the gas in the North Sea at the beginning of its exploitation. (This uranium is mostly found in shale form in Närke (Kvarntorp) and Västergötland (Billingen).) Assuming that the price of electricity continues to rise, this uranium could eventually be worth very many billions of dollars. Enough, in fact, to provide the most modern health-care facilities for the nuclear opponents and their families, as well as high-quality educations for themselves and their descendents. Of course, it might also turn out that it provides a large number of Kalashnikoff assault rifles and/or plane tickets for certain lucky recipients of Swedish ‘bistånd’ (i.e. development aid), but that delicate issue cannot be taken up here.
What about the price of electricity to businesses and households? In the case of Sweden, the low cost of nuclear and hydropower, and fairly smart regulation, made it possible to provide electricity to the industrial sector at the lowest price in the world. This being the case, nothing is more disheartening than hearing about the “subsidies” paid the nuclear sector, because cheap electricity meant the establishment of new businesses, and more important the expansion of existing industries, and the tax income generated by these activities more than compensated for any ‘subsidies’ that might have been dispensed by the government. (This tax income was received from both firms and their employees.) Households could also purchase electricity at reasonable prices, although occasionally this good might have cost more in Sweden than in Norway, parts of Canada, and Australia. Accordingly, had the Swedish government been in a rational mode, the two reactors that were closed would have been kept open, and another very large installation constructed.
In addition, regulation would have been continued (although it might be true that the comparatively low salaries of power plant executives and technicians should have been adjusted). The borders would quite simply have been closed to natural gas. In case anyone is interested in the ‘fruits’ of deregulation in this country, the largest energy intensive industries have now threatened to form a syndicate in order to purchase electricity from Poland and Russia. Of course, were it possible, they would simply move their operations out of this country, and someday this may take place for many of these industries – in which case Sweden would lose still more thousands of highly paid jobs.
This is another of those topics that politicians prefer to overlook, because for the most part those ladies and gentlemen can look forward to a lifestyle that enables them to avoid indignities like unemployment and declining social services. Another reason for avoiding debate is that it would question the near sacred resolve to become even more deeply imbedded in the politics and philosophy of the EU. For Sweden, membership in the EU is definitely the worst social, and arguably the worst economic venture in modern times! By way of contrast, it was a godsend for politicians like Ms Margot Wallström, who became the EU’s environmental minister, and was therefore able to declaim to a wider audience what to her mind was the lack of importance of nuclear energy for reducing the build-up of greenhouse gases.
Although only discussed en-passant, the great winner in the Swedish deregulation circus is the government, whose good fortune can be attributed to the structure of energy taxes and pricing. The Nordic Electricity Exchange (NordPool) plays a key role in the pricing of Swedish electricity, and here it is instructive to notice that when the price of oil rises, an upward pressure exists on the price of electricity in Sweden, although oil has virtually an insignificant role in the domestic provision of electricity.
The story here is that oil-based power is important for some of the other countries involved with NordPool, and so an increased price of oil raises the price of the electricity to these other countries, which, via the trade taking place in NordPool, and marginal cost pricing, raises the price of electricity to Swedish buyers. Moreover, as Braconier indicates (2005), the same phenomenon applies for emissions trading, since generators that must purchase ‘rights’ will (ceteris paribus) increase electricity prices. (Aside from this situation, since the price of gas is to some extent directly indexed to the price of oil, and coal is to some extent a substitute, even countries that do not generate much electricity with oil, but instead use gas or coal, can contribute to increased Swedish electricity prices.)
SEVERAL ITEMS OF GENERAL INTEREST
It was mentioned above that Sweden possesses large quantities of low-grade uranium, and thus it can be suggested that science and technology could make it feasible to exploit these resources much earlier than presently expected. The same is true of the low-grade resources in many other countries.
One of the assumptions in my work is that even if gas were still available at bargain basement prices, when the likely development of its future price is considered, it would be sub-optimal to regard it as preferable to nuclear where new investments are concerned. The global output of gas might peak in twenty or thirty years, while a new nuclear installation will be on line in 60 years, and should still have access to comparatively inexpensive uranium. In these circumstances I find it extremely difficult to comprehend why anyone in a highly literate country like Sweden would find it possible to disregard the advantages of having access to inexpensive energy within their lifetime, and probably even the lifetime of their immediate descendents.
By way of comparison, the Economist (July 9, 2005) presents estimates from several sources for average electricity costs. For German utilities the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) gives 1.5 cents/kwh for nuclear, 3.1-3.8 cents for gas, and 3.8-4.4 cents for coal. Similarly, they give 1.7 cents/kwh for nuclear in the US, 2 cents for coal, and 5.7 cents for gas. The International Energy Agency (IEA), employing a discount rate of 5%, argues that nuclear is $21-31/Mwh, while gas ranges from $37-60/Mwh. Other sources (e.g. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Britain’s Royal Institute of International Affairs) disagree; however since I believe that nuclear is optimal, and make a practice of ignoring everything originating with the energy economists of MIT and the RIIA, I think that when the gas peak is taken into consideration, nuclear has a clear economic advantage. It is true though that just now uranium prices are rising, even if many uranium mines are being reopened.
According to estimates of the World Nuclear Association in 2000, the country with the largest uranium reserves is Australia, whose reserves at that time were 622,000 metric tons (= 622,000 tonnes = 622,000t), and whose production was 7,720t. In the sequel I denote this as (622,000; 7,720). This discrepancy seems very large, but not when I remember the negative attitudes toward the production of uranium by my students in mathematical economics in that country. The largest producer was Canada, with a production of 12,520t and reserves of 331,000t = (331,000; 12,520). Other important countries were Kazakhstan (439,200; 2018), Namibia (156,120; 2,239), Niger (69,960; 3,095), Russia (145,000; 2,000), United States (110,000; 1000), Uzbekistan (66,210; 2,400), other (306, 940; 2774). Total estimated reserves in 2000 were thus 2,246,430t, while production was 35,767t.
For technical details see Owen (1985), but the total input of uranium in e.g. the production of electricity exceeds 35,767t because a great deal of the resource can be obtained from the recycling of spent fuel and former military ordnance. Sweden does not appear above because exploiting its low-grade reserves is uneconomical at the present time. Eventually this situation could change because of scientific and technological improvements in mining and processing. Something that might cause a quantum jump in the value of Swedish uranium however would be the breeder reactor becoming a commercial proposition, because in that case the output of energy (due to the exploitation of the plutonium that could be bred) would be enormous for even low-grade uranium.
As it happens, my opinion of the breeder remains the same as in my previous work, and it is reinforced by a casual and I hope impartial appraisal of the Swedish government where any kind of security matters are concerned. There was a time when various ‘controlled’ or proscribed substances were sold openly in front of the Swedish Riksdag (i.e. parliament), virtually in front of law enforcement, and visible to any legislator or government official or anybody else with an interest in this trade.
This particular problem was solved by moving the Riksdag and its crew of EU groupies to more genteel surroundings, however the drug trade flourishes more intensely than ever, because as a result of its EU membership, Sweden has only a nominal control of its borders. Incidentally, this is not true of many other countries, but Swedish politicians and bureaucrats were terrified that they would lose access to future (tax-free) employment opportunities in Brussels or other EU strongholds if they were to put Swedish interests before those of foreigners.
As far as I am concerned, the Swedish government (and most other governments) are at present completely incapable of solving the security problems that would be posed by a greater presence of and/or reliance on plutonium. This is probably the only point on which I happen to be in agreement with people like Ralph Nader and Amory Lovins. Unlike them, however, I happen to believe that by partially rejecting the energy in uranium when used in ‘conventional’ reactors, the (psychological) conditions are being created for a panic-stricken rush into the breeder when the fundamental scarcity of oil and gas is revealed to the television audience. In his important book on the depletion of oil and gas, Professor David Goodstein (2004) seems to think that uranium is also scarce, but its scarcity is dubious if it is used as an input in the breeder.
The present Swedish Prime Minister, Göran Persson, has pronounced nuclear power “obsolete”, and he has been joined in this looney judgement by the energy Minister, Ms Sahlin, and the ‘economics’ minister, Mr Östros. When the latter was a graduate student at Uppsala University, he assured me that if Sweden did not enter the EU, it would become another Albania.
An interesting factor here is that Sweden is literally surrounded by comparatively unsafe reactors: a total of six can be found at Sosnowy Bor outside St Petersburg (Russia), and Ignalina in Lithuania. In the film The Deer Hunter, Christopher Walken sang a drunken version of the marvellous tune ‘I’ve got my eyes on you’, and many nuclear experts in Sweden have had their eyes on Ignalina as an installation (of the Chernobyl type) that could pose a danger to this country, but not the ‘Greens’. Their eyes instead have been fixed on safe reactors in Sweden, as well as the new super-safe facility that will be under construction in Finland, and which will have a rated output of 1600 megawatts, or as much as the two Swedish reactors that were closed at Barsebäck (near Malmö).
Somebody else with a keen interest in reactors is Mr Romano Prodi of the EU, who is one of the overseers of the ridiculous attempt to deregulate Europe’s electricity and gas. Among the reactors in which he has taken a particular interest are those of Bulgaria, which the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) considers to be on a par with the average in Western Europe. According to John Ritch, the US ambassador to the IAEA, the European Commission has decided to “blackmail” Bulgaria in such a way as to make its entry into the EU contingent on its willingness to reduce its nuclear capacity.
Even a combination of John Maynard Keynes and Sigmund Freud would have a difficult time comprehending the reasoning here, although Mr Ritch feels that this scheme originates with the “antinuclear environmentalists” that play an important role in the Prodi team. This may be true, but as I pointed out in a talk in Milan several years ago, it may also have to do with a belief by the Prodi brainstrust that since half of Bulgaria’s electricity came from nuclear reactors (as compared to 30% in Europe overall), electricity deregulation in that corner of Europe would be easier if Bulgaria’s nuclear capability was reduced. Theoretically this makes sense, because in Sweden competition – which was supposed to be the object of deregulation – decreased rather than increased after deregulation was introduced, and one reason is that large generators have been able to merge with smaller firms. On the other hand, it is possible to conclude that deregulation has achieved one of its goals due to the opening of the pseudo-market NordPool for the trading of a fraction of Scandinavia’s electricity.
NUCLEAR AND THE KYOTO HOBBY-HORSE
As I have found out, it would not be a good idea in Sweden (and probably elsewhere) to belittle the Kyoto Protocol if you are planning to impress the Broad Masses with your message – or at least that portion of them with the typically “deep interest” in environmental matters that characterizes the young know-nothings found at various research institutes in Sweden. The basic problem here is that this sub-set of the BM doesn’t really understand the issue. They don’t understand that at bottom the Kyoto Conference itself had little or nothing to do with reducing Greenhouse gases, and might best be described as an outstanding example of what George Orwell called a system of indoor welfare. Michael Hanlon, the science editor of the Daily Mail (UK) puts it as follows:
“According to the environmentalist mullahs, there is only One Solution to global warming, and its name is Kyoto. The Japanese city in which a rather shambolic agreement to curb carbon dioxide emissions was signed some years ago has acquired talismanic status among people who one suspects have little idea what ‘Kyoto’ is, would do or how it works.” (2005)
Among the “people” that Mr Hanlon is describing were most of the ‘delegates’ to Kyoto, whose principal interest was to obtain tickets for the next climate warming jamboree. According to Professor Sven Kullander and several colleagues in the Swedish Academy of Science (2002), Kyoto was an important first step for reducing greenhouse gases, but “helt otillräckligt för en reell förbättring” (= completely insufficient for a real improvement). If readers can accept the latter portion of this judgement, then I accept the first part – although in reality I put the Kyoto meeting in the same category as the ‘World Summit’ in Capetown, where perhaps 60,000 freeloaders assembled to solve in their own unique way the many and varied problems confronting contemporary societies.
Swedes accept Kyoto for the same reason that they accept electricity deregulation and the EU: they were told to accept it by celebrity politicians and journalists. The physicist Richard Feynman once said that in matters of the above nature the logic of science is superior to that of the authorities, but a hypothesis of that nature has no place in the pretentious deliberations and pronouncements of globalist and internationalist media favorites, which assures that it is taboo for a large part of their audiences – at least when they are sober.
Many people are unaware that George W. Bush (and many Republican members of Congress) accepts the consensus opinion of elite climate scientists that excessive climate warming has an anthropocentric origin. In addition, as an English ‘boffin’ recently said, half of the up-market climate skeptics are cranks, which is a perfect description of some persons who contradict my interpretation of Swedish ‘enigmas’. Mr Bush infuriates many Swedish commentators because his approach to the problem is via technology. They want the billions that will be added to the many billions already spent by his government to address global warming to concentrate on ‘renewables’. No attention is paid to the scam known as ‘emissions trading’, although an advisor to President Putin once called it a scheme to make money that is irrelevant for suppressing greenhouse gases.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Let me sum up what I said in a recent article in the journal Energy and Environment (2004). We do not know if global warming is the real deal, or just part of a cycle; but we do know that gas and oil are running out, although it may take a few decades. In these circumstances the optimal behavior is to get friendlier with the friendly atom, and do what Prime Minister Blair and the founder of Greenpeace suggest, which is to increase the use of nuclear energy.
According to one person who yearns for a public debate with me, letting nature take its course makes sense, because even if we find ourselves in deep trouble, after a few hundred years of heavy ice and other discomforts, beautiful Stockholm might be more attractive. I ignore that kind of advice, since the only place that it could possibly be taken seriously is here in the Kingdom of Sweden, where things like electricity deregulation and EU membership make it clear to me that the First Law of Nature – self preservation – is slowly being repealed.
REFERENCES
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Bronner, Nils (2005). ‘Sorgligt spel om kärndraften’. Svenska Dagbladet (1 February).
Goodstein, David (2005). Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil. New York: Norton.
Harlinger, Hildegard (1975). Neue Modelle für die Zukunft der Menshheit. IFO Institute für Wirtschaftsforschung. Munich.
Hanlon, Michael (2005) ‘Why do greens hate machines’. The Spectator (6 August).
Kullander, Sven, Henning Rodhe, Mats Marms-Ringdahl, and Dick Hedberg (2002). ’Okunnig att avveckla kärnkraften’. Dagens Nyheter (7 April).
Matsui, Ken-Ichi (1998). ’Global demand growth of power generation’. The Energy Journal (No.2).
Owen, Anthony David (1985). The Economics of Uranium. New York: Praeger .
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Stipp, David (2004). ‘Climate collapse’. Fortune (February 9).
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