Squeaking By in Switzerland

Mühleberg, a town in Switzerland, has a nuclear power plant, it’s beginning to age, the writing is on the wall to shut it down. That’s the end of nuclear energy there, isn’t it? That what the town wants, right? Well, no:

The people of canton Bern have voted in favor of building a new nuclear power plant in Mühleberg to replace the old one there.

Now, this outcome was a little more controversial than that. The state (or canton) of Bern voted for this, but the city of Bern – which is Switzerland’s capital – voted against it. The canton’s vote in favor was narrow – 51 percent – and the city’s vote against rather large – 65 percent. Since the city of Bern is in the canton, the numbers suggest that people outside Bern supported this in rather larger numbers than that 51 percent. That would make sense – it’s the people of Muhleberg and surrounding areas that see the economic benefits from the plant.

In any event, the plant operator is pleased enough:

"It is a positive signal for nuclear power and a healthy mix of energy sources," Axpo spokeswoman Daniela Biedermann told the Swiss News Agency.

And so are people who would rather do without a new plant:

Meanwhile, Roland Näf, president of the Bern branch of the centre-left Social Democrats, was pleased that so many voted against the Mühleberg II project."We can be happy that support for atomic energy is crumbling," Näf told the Swiss News Agency.

So it goes in elections, especially close ones. The vote was to measure public opinion and is non-binding, but it doesn’t show any compelling reason not to build the new plant. So that’s what’s now planned. Good enough outcome for me.

The plant in question.

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Sneak Peek

There's an invisible force powering and propelling our way of life.
It's all around us. You can't feel it. Smell it. Or taste it.
But it's there all the same. And if you look close enough, you can see all the amazing and wondrous things it does.
It not only powers our cities and towns.
And all the high-tech things we love.
It gives us the power to invent.
To explore.
To discover.
To create advanced technologies.
This invisible force creates jobs out of thin air.
It adds billions to our economy.
It's on even when we're not.
And stays on no matter what Mother Nature throws at it.
This invisible force takes us to the outer reaches of outer space.
And to the very depths of our oceans.
It brings us together. And it makes us better.
And most importantly, it has the power to do all this in our lifetime while barely leaving a trace.
Some people might say it's kind of unbelievable.
They wonder, what is this new power that does all these extraordinary things?

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