Austria, which excluded nuclear power in 1978, is banking on renewable energies

Nuclear power is on the rise in Europe because Brussels has just launched a European industrial alliance to accelerate the deployment of future small modular reactors, called SMRs. Austria is fiercely opposed to it.

Several states, including France, consider that nuclear energy will help achieve the carbon neutrality objective set by the European Union by 2050. Austria is strongly opposed to it: the country has said no to the atom by referendum in 1978.

Built two years before this consultation, the Zwentendorf nuclear power plant was therefore never put into service. It has become a tourist attraction that Stefan Zach, of the company EVN, owner of the plant, shows 15,000 people every year. “Look at these colors, it’s typical of the 1970s, there’s a lot of orange, bright green, he describes. Many visitors find a bit of their youth here.” In addition to the reactor, visitors can see the control room or the condensation chamber, with its incredible echo. The center also hosts film or music video shoots.

But today it has other missions, looking towards the future: “Zwentendorf is increasingly used as a decommissioning training center. We practice there and see how to best and safely dismantle nuclear power plants after their closure”explains Stefan Zach.

“We also built a large photovoltaic installation. Zwentendorf has therefore also become a symbol of the future of renewable energies.”

Stefan Zach

at franceinfo

More than 85% of Austrian electricity is produced from renewable energies and the eco-conservative government wants to reach 100% by 2030. Vienna is also aiming for carbon neutrality by 2040, ten years before the Union European, without nuclear power. A model that the Minister of the Environment, Leonore Gewessler, intends to defend on the European scene: “We are in a critical decade for climate protection, but nuclear energy is too slow and too expensive. This is why Austria is not only promoting renewable energies at European level, but also uses legal means where there are distortions of competition or greenwashing to the detriment of renewables.”

But environmental NGOs doubt that Austria will achieve its ambitious objectives as it stands. They are pleading to accelerate the energy transition, the only way according to them to offer a credible alternative model to nuclear power. In any case, there is broad consensus today in Austria about opposition to the atom, both among the population and among political parties.