In the next 17 years at least three of Switzerland's five nuclear power plants will taken from the grid. This is proposed in the new law governing the production of nuclear energy. This means a reduction of 16 per cent in the country's total production of electricity. How will we manage?

Wolfgang Kröger: Switzerland must consider how it wants to cover its electricity needs. There are a number of questions to be asked and answered. Of course, everyone is shirking the issue.

What are the most urgent questions?

Kröger: One of the fundamental ones is, do we want to produce the electricity we need within Switzerland? That is possible today with hydroelectric and nuclear energy. Other forms of energy don't play a great part as far the amount is concerned. This means that we have to carry on with these technologies.

Gas-fired power plants would be a realistic alternative, but raise new questions. Do we want to burden our more or less CO2-free current energy supply with CO2 emissions? And do we want to become dependent – in addition to oil in the transport and heating sectors – on gas?

Another possibility would be to buy our electricity from other countries. If we assume that France continues to adhere to its current policy of nuclear power and Switzerland "unideologically" draws electricity from the European power grid, then the greater part would be nuclear energy. Is this what we want?

The seceding CEO of Atel, Alessandro Sala, recently called for the construction of a new nuclear power plant. Do we need a new one?

Kröger: Nuclear energy is option, and one that must be discussed. But with a cool head – and soon. A new nuclear power plant would take ten or twelve years to build, five to seven for the planning and permission process and five for construction.

According to the nuclear energy law the legal framework governing the permission of a new power plant would have to be submitted to Switzerland's electorate in a referendum. While it's true that the initiative on "Moratorium and Atomic-free Energy" was rejected at the ballot box a year ago, in the current political climate a vote on a new nuclear power plant probably wouldn't stand much of a chance. What do you think?

Kröger: It's difficult to say. In both issues voters had to decide on the possible shutting down of economically productive plants, therefore on the destruction of capital. They weren't voting on the construction of a new plant.

I would like to point out, again: we need a wide and deep public discussion of how we want to assure our future energy needs. We must be quite clear about how much electricity we want to use and how we want to supply it. In the end it's the citizen's hand on the light switch.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported "No banker in his right mind would finance a new nuclear power plant in America today." Who would pay for a new one?

Kröger: The construction of a new power plant would cost billions of Swiss francs. It could only be financed by a consortium of current producers.

And where would this consortium build the plant?

Kröger: I think that any new plant would be planned and built on existing sites. These sites are in locations where cooling water is available, where access to the national grid exists – all the necessary infrastructure is there. And the populations of these communes have a higher level of acceptance of nuclear energy than elsewhere.

The nuclear power plant in Gösgen worked to a capcity of 95 per cent last year to meet the increase in power consumption. Switzerland's nuclear plants cover about 40 per cent of the electricity consumed in the country – and tendency is increasing. Picture: atomenergie.ch large

Suppose we planned to build a new plant for 2025. What sort of reactor would it have?

Kröger: Probably the European Pressure Reactor (EPR). In principle the EPR is a continuation of the type used in Beznau. It's a water-cooled reactor that was developed by Framatom and Siemens. The EPR is the type of plant that was realised in Finland, by the way, and France wants to build a whole series.

Another type of installation is the gas-cooled high-temperature reactor. Thanks to its safety features and the way it can use this technology it is very promising. I believe that such a type could be realised in ten or fifteen years from now.

If one looks further into the future the "Generation IV" reactors are interesting. They would be a possible replacement for Gösgen and Leibstadt.

How safe are today's nuclear power plants?

Kröger: From the point of view of risk, safety and protection of the population the new power plants are quite clearly safer than today's. True, amongst the population the general perception is that nuclear energy is passé, that nothing new is being developed, that it's all old technology. But this is not the case. In the United States, for example, the production of nuclear hydrogen is being massively developed.

What do you think about nuclear power with regard to sustainability?

Kröger: If one takes carbon dioxide or economical aspects as indicators then nuclear energy is a very good option. Even if one takes life-cycle approaches into account, nuclear energy comes off very well (2).

One aspect that always comes up in a discussion on nuclear energy is radioactive waste. It is possible to reduce the amount of nuclear waste?

Kröger: Nuclear energy only produces very small quantities of waste. The problem is that the waste has to be kept out of the biosphere for unimaginably long periods of time in order not to burden future generations with the consequences. By converting waste products with long half-lives into ones with short half-lives through transmutation we can reduce the length of time that waste has to be securely stored by a factor of one hundred to within a historical time-span (3). This is entirely possible from a techological point of view. However, the problem remains that the waste has to be guarded for a long time and a waste location has to be realised. One contribution to reducing the amount of waste and the storage time would be to separate the plutonium in the spent fuel elements and re-use it as MOX fuel.

What is the opinion of nuclear energy in other European countries?

Kröger: After a careful process of evaluation in Finland the decision has been taken to build a new power plant. In Sweden, too, there are indications that they are reconsidering the country's decision to withdraw from nuclear energy. And in France the EPR type will probably be further developed and new plants built. A policy decision is pending (4).