Swiss voters are casting ballots in a referendum led by environmental groups that would require the government to set a precise timetable to end Switzerland's production and use of nuclear energy.

Polls have suggested a close race despite objection. After the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, the Swiss federal government adopted a gradualist approach toward transitioning the country toward renewable energy by 2050. It says nuclear plants should continue to operate as long as they are deemed safe.

The proposal being voted on would shutter by 2029 the last of Switzerland's five nuclear power plants that now generate 40 percent of the country's electricity.

Switzerland regularly holds referendums in its form of direct democracy, which allows voters in the country of about 8.2 million to set policy. </s> GENEVA — Like other countries after the 2011 Fukushima disaster, Switzerland pledged to abandon nuclear power in coming years. But anti-nuclear advocacy groups say the Swiss government's timetable isn't fast enough, and have pushed for a referendum this weekend that would hasten the planned exit.

Swiss voters cast ballots on Sunday on an initiative championed by environmentalists and nuclear foes that would, if passed, shutter by 2029 the last of Switzerland's five nuclear power plants that now generate 40 of the country's electricity.

Polls suggest a tight race on an issue that could put Switzerland on a similar track to one in Germany. The Germans have been aggressively ramping up transition to renewables like solar energy in time to be done with nuclear energy by 2022, a deadline also set after a tsunami ravaged Japan's Fukushima nuclear power facility five years ago.

As part of an energy plan that runs through 2050, the Swiss government has already agreed not to replace its existing nuclear plants, which can operate as long as they're deemed safe. The plants are to be closed progressively as their life spans expire, and the government says it needs time to switch to other sources such as wind, solar and biomass energy.

Switzerland regularly holds referendums as part of its particular form of direct democracy, which allows voters in the country of about 8.2 million to set policy on major issues — at times causing hassles for officials to carry out the public's will.

The two chambers of the Swiss legislature and the executive Federal Council have variously argued that the initiative, "for an orderly withdrawal from the nuclear energy program," would force Switzerland to import more electricity, such as from carbon-spewing coal-fired plants in Germany. Plus, early shutdowns could make the government — and thus taxpayers — liable to pay penalties to the nuclear plant operators.

But Ilias Panchard, secretary-general of a group whose French name translates as "Get Out of Nuclear," says Switzerland's nuclear power complex is dangerous, aging and beset by problems — with two of the five Swiss plants not operating at the moment for safety or technical reasons. His group insists now is the time to set a fixed timetable, before it's too late to move to a proper replacement.

"If we just wait until an accident or a problem with the plants, then we do not have the time, the energy to replace it. So the idea of the initiative, the referendum, is to say: in 2029 we will have no more nuclear energy in Switzerland," he said in an interview in Geneva overlooking the Alps.

The initiative would the limit the life span of nuclear plants to 45 years, and force the closure next year of three of the plants, Beznau 1 — which Panchard called the world's oldest operating nuclear plant, built in 1969 — as well as Beznau 2 and Muhleberg.

"Concretely, that means that in 2017, about one-third of the electricity generated by nuclear energy will be lacking. That amounts to the average annual electricity consumption of close to half of Swiss households," Burkhalter said, adding that renewables won't be able to make up the difference right away. </s> Swiss voters are deciding on Sunday whether to close the country’s five nuclear power plants after 45 years in operation. The outcome is too close to call, according to the latest opinion poll.

The Green Party initiative argues the safety of old reactors operating since the early 1970s can no longer be guaranteed. Instead, they are calling for more energy efficiency and renewable energy resources.

“An orderly phase out creates more safety and protects our country,” according to the campaign slogan of the initiative committee.

If approved, three plants would have to be shut down as early as next year and Switzerland would phase out nuclear energy production by 2029.

The proposal is backed by an alliance of leftwing parties, trade unions and environmental organisations.

Most of the Swiss nuclear reactors have unlimited operating licences, which are subject to approval by the regulator.

Opponents, including the main centrist and rightwing parties in parliament as well as the business community, have dismissed the proposal as risky and too hasty.

They say it creates more uncertainty, danger and chaos for electricity supplies in Switzerland, and argue the country would have to increase energy imports from abroad, notably from coal-fired power stations in Germany and nuclear reactors in France.

In the run-up to the November 27 vote, opponents warned that the proposed phase out could lead to blackouts and trigger considerable compensation claims from the operators of the power plants.

Switzerland has five nuclear power reactors, generating about 34.5% of its electricity. It uses nuclear energy to produce electricity, in research and medicine. Worldwide there are 447 nuclear power plants in 31 countries, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). An experimental power reactor at Lucens was written off in 1969 following a core melt. Two reactors, Beznau 1 and Leibstadt, are currently off grid due to repairs. The Mühleberg plant will be closed down in 2019 according to the power station operators. Plans to build two power plants were abandoned in the 1980s following anti-nuclear protests.

Following the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, the Swiss government in 2011 decided in principle to opt out of nuclear power production by 2034. In its energy policy, the government recommended decommissioning all nuclear reactors and to promote hydroelectric power, renewable energy and combined gas plants.

Last September, parliament approved an energy strategy, ending more than two years of debate. The programme foresees boosting renewable energy resources and outlaws the construction of nuclear power plants. However, it sets no deadline for the existing reactors to be shut down.

Unhappy with the Energy Strategy 2050, the rightwing Swiss People’s Party is challenging the law to a referendum, criticising planned government subsidies for renewable energy resources.

The latest opinion poll published last week found supporters just a few percentage points ahead of opponents of the initiative with 6% of respondents still undecided.

Based on the considerable drop in support among citizens over the preceding weeks, experts of the leading GfS Bern research and polling institute give an advantage to the opponents.

The vote needs a majority of cantons and the popular vote to win. It is believed that the results from six of the country’s 26 cantons could be a decisive factor, including Bern and Vaud.

Turnout on November 27 is expected to be above average, around 51%. </s> Swiss voters are supporting a referendum to withdraw the country from nuclear power in favor of renewable energy.

A projection from Sunday's referendum shows a majority of cantons (states) voted for the plan. Under Switzerland's direct democracy system, initiatives need a majority of both cantons and votes to pass.

The projection for SRF public television showed 58 percent of voters in favor and 42 percent against the proposal.

The Swiss government wants to ban the construction of new nuclear power plants and decommission the country's five existing ones at the end of their technically safe operating lives.

The plan would also boost renewable energies such as water and wind and make cars and electronic devices more energy efficient.

Opponents warned the initiative would significantly increase electricity bills. </s> Swiss voters have backed government plans to replace the power from ageing nuclear reactors with renewable energy.

A total of 58.2 per cent of voters supported the phaseout of nuclear energy in a binding referendum on Sunday. Under the Swiss system of direct democracy, voters have the final say on major policy issues.

The plan will provide billions of pounds in subsidies for renewable energy, ban the construction of nuclear plants and decommission the country’s five existing ones, which produce about a third of the country’s electricity.

The first nuclear power plant is earmarked for closure in 2019.

"This is a historic day for the country," Green Party parliamentarian Adele Thorens Goumaz told public broadcaster RTS.

"Switzerland will finally enter into the 21st century when it comes to energy."

The move echoes efforts across Europe to reduce dependence on nuclear energy and has been in the making following Japan’s Fukushima disaster in 2011. Germany has announced it will close all nuclear plants by 2022 and Austria banned it decades ago.

The Swiss government wants to boost hydraulic power as well as solar, wind, geothermal and biomass.

Energy Minister Doris Leuthard, from the centre-right Christian Democratic Party, told reporters at a press conference: "The results shows the population wants a new energy policy and does not want any new nuclear plants. The law leads our country into a modern energy future."

The new law is expected to come into effect at the start of 2018 and Ms Leuthard said the plan would cost the average family about 40 francs (£31.64) more a year because a higher grid surcharge would help to fund renewable subsidies.

But critics to the plan claimed the initiative would significantly increase electricity bills. The country’s largest party, the populist Swiss People’s Party, campaigned against the plan and claimed energy bills could ramp up by an additional 3,200 Swiss francs (£2,532) per four-person household a year.

It said the energy transition will be too expensive, would trigger greater reliance on imported electricity and could disfigure the landscape with more wind turbines and solar panels.

Last November, Swiss voters rejected a plan to speed up the phaseout of coal power plants by limiting their operational lifespan to 45 years, which would have meant three of the five nuclear reactors would have had to close this year.

But most other parties and environmental groups hailed the result of the vote a success.

The new plan does not include a clear timetable for the phaseout of nuclear energy but it aims to cut average energy consumption per person per year by 16 per cent by 2020 and 43 per cent by 2035 compared to 2000 levels.

According to the ATS news agency, only 42.3 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot in the referendum, a low turnout which yet falls within the average over the past two years. </s> A map of voting in the Swiss cantons showed wide discrepancies in opinions in different parts of the country.

In French-speaking Vaud, in the west of Switzerland, 73 percent of voters supported dumping nuclear power, but in German-speaking Glarus and Schwyz around 56 percent of the electorate wanted to keep it.

Switzerland has five ageing nuclear power stations, which provide 38 percent of the country's energy needs.

Two are at Beznau and the others are at Muhleberg, Gosgen and Leibstadt, all in the north of the country.

The tsunami in Japan in 2011, which led to a major emergency at the Fukushima nuclear power station, signaled the beginning of the end for nuclear power in Switzerland.

In June 2011, the Swiss Parliament resolved to start phasing out nuclear power in 2034. But pressure, led by the Green Party, has grown for an earlier switch to renewables.

As a result of the May 21 referendum, Switzerland will begin phasing out nuclear power in 2019.

With more than a third of the country's power currently coming from nuclear, it will represent a major challenge for the electricity companies to find new sources in such a short time frame.

But the president of Switzerland's Green Party, Regula Rytz, said the vote was a "moment of historic change."

"The Swiss population has said no to the construction of new nuclear power plants and yes to the development of renewable energy. The conditions have also been set whereby the economy and households will need to take responsibility for the future. It's absolutely magnificent," said Rytz.

Energy Minister Doris Leuthard had been urging voters to back the switch to renewables despite the huge cost, which opponents had been highlighting.

"After six years of debate in parliament and at committee level, a new chapter in Switzerland's energy policy can begin," said Leuthard at a news conference. "But there is still a lot of work to do."

The World Nuclear Association says radioactive waste is mostly handled by Zwilag, a company owned by the four Swiss nuclear companies.

Zwilag began using a central interim dry cask storage facility for high-level wastes at Wurenlingen in 2001.

Its Alpine topography and high levels of rainfall makes Switzerland ideal for hydro-electric power generation and it saw a boom between 1945 and 1970, but they remain loss-making enterprises.

Felix Muri, a Swiss politician who had campaigned against shutting down nuclear power prematurely, said he believed the real cost of the switch had been kept from voters and would end up hitting consumers in their pockets.

Switzerland will join Austria, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Poland and Greece, none of whom produce nuclear power.

Last year, the British government controversially gave the go-ahead for a new nuclear power station at Hinkley in Somerset despite security concerns and fundamental design problems. </s> Switzerland has voted to start exiting nuclear power and replace it with renewable energy.

In a referendum held on Sunday, over 58% of the voters endorsed the need to go with cleaner power sources by replacing the country’s ageing nuclear power plants with new renewable power projects.

The country currently has five nuclear power plants that are fast approaching the end of their operational lifespan. These power plants cover the needs of one third of Switzerland’s energy requirements, as reported by BBC.

Although no date has been decided yet regarding the decommissioning of the nuclear power plants, the country will now look to focus on renewable sources like wind, solar and hydro power following the mandate.

Those who have been opposing the country’s plans to move away from nuclear power have claimed that Switzerland will have to pay a lot more money on renewable sources while the landscape risks at losing its beauty.

Green party president Regula Rytz, who has hailed the mandate as a moment of historic change, has been quoted by the publication to have said: “The Swiss population has said 'no' to the construction of new nuclear power plants and yes to the development of renewable energy.

“The conditions have also been set whereby the economy and households will need to take responsibility for the future.”

Following the Fukushima plant disaster in Japan during the 2011 tsunami, the Swiss government proposed to phase out nuclear energy and meet the country’s power requirements entirely from renewables by 2050.

While the new mandate lets the government to implement the plan from January 2018, a previous referendum seeking the lifespan of the nuclear plants reduced from 60 years to 45 years was rejected by the voters in November last year.

Image: The Beznau Nuclear Power Plant, one of the five nuclear plants in Switzerland. Photo: courtesy of Roland Zumbühl, Arlesheim/Wikipedia. </s> Image copyright Reuters Image caption Thirty-eight per cent of Switzerland's energy currently comes from nuclear power

Swiss voters will decide on Sunday whether to phase out nuclear power.

Although Switzerland's government already has a plan to decommission the country's five nuclear plants "at the end of their natural lives", opponents of nuclear power claim the strategy is too vague, and may allow the plants to keep operating indefinitely.

The proposal before voters, brought by the Green party, calls for nuclear plants to be closed after a maximum 45 years in operation, and for a ban on construction of any new plants.

This would mean that three of the five plants would have to shut next year, the fourth in 2024 and the last in 2029.

The 2011 accident at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant was, for many Swiss voters, the deciding factor in a relationship with nuclear power that has always been uneasy.

In the wake of Fukushima, the Swiss government announced the plan to gradually phase out nuclear power, once the plants were no longer viable on the advice of the businesses which run them and the Swiss nuclear watchdog.

The announcement coincided with neighbouring Germany's decision to abandon nuclear power too, but did not go as far, in that the German government set fixed dates for decommissioning.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Opponents of nuclear power argue it is wrong to allow aging plants to keep operating indefinitely

It is the perceived vagueness over dates, and concerns over safety, which lie behind the current vote on a faster phase-out.

'Catastrophic'

Switzerland is a densely populated country, none of its five plants is more than 70km (43 miles) from urban centres and the government issues iodine tablets to communities within a certain radius, to be taken in case of a release of radioactive material.

Due to public concern, no new nuclear power stations have been built in Switzerland since 1984.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The referendum is the latest in a series to be held in Switzerland

The Beznau 1 plant is the world's oldest, dating back to 1969, while Muhleberg is close enough to the Swiss capital Berne for all its citizens to have iodine tablets in their bathroom cabinets. It came on stream in 1971.

For campaigners like Nils Epprecht of the Swiss Energy Foundation, Switzerland is just not the right country for nuclear power. An accident would be "catastrophic", he argues, making large parts of the country uninhabitable.

Supporters of a quick phase-out of nuclear also say that Switzerland, already famous for strict environmental policies, ought to be providing Europe with a shining example of renewable energy, rather than relying on elderly nuclear reactors. More than 60% of Swiss power already comes from a renewable source - hydropower.

And, they argue, unless the government commits to a firm date for a nuclear phase-out, there will be no economic impetus to invest in renewables.

But Swiss business leaders, very influential on Switzerland's political scene, have their doubts.

Thirty-eight per cent of Switzerland's energy currently comes from nuclear power, and Hans Ulrich Bigler, member of parliament for the centre-right Radical Party, and director of the Swiss Association of Small and Medium Businesses, believes that without a clear solution on how to fill that gap, such a rapid exit from nuclear power would be the real catastrophe.

Image copyright EPA Image caption Swiss voters will decide whether to say 'yes please' or 'no thanks' to nuclear power

"Energy prices would rise," he claimed, "and we would have to import energy from France or Germany."

Imported French energy, Mr Bigler claims, would almost certainly be nuclear, while German terawatts would likely come from coal. Neither, he argues, would really achieve the environmental aims of those calling for an end to nuclear.

Latest opinion polls show the vote is likely to be very close, with many voters agonising over their desire to do what they think is right for the environment, and a reluctance to damage the Swiss economy, currently ranked as the world's most successful. </s> The Swiss have used their power of direct democracy to end nuclear power. In a referendum on Sunday (May 21), 58.2% voted in favor of a law that will not allow building of new nuclear plants. The country’s five nuclear plants can continue to operate as long as they are safe.

Switzerland relies heavily on hydro and nuclear to fulfill its electricity needs. Renewable energy forms a tiny fraction of the mix.

The country’s Energy Strategy 2050 law, passed by the referendum, also sets out ambitious goals to reduce carbon emissions. Its aim is to move the country away from nuclear energy and towards more renewable energy. It will provides billions in subsidies to increase the proportion of solar and wind in the mix, and bailing out the country’s hydro power utilities, whose costs exceed Europe’s wholesale power prices.

The law is not without controversy. One question is how much the average Swiss will end up paying for the changes. Energy minister Doris Leuthard said financing renewables will cost an average family 40 Swiss francs ($41) a year. Critics say that the actual cost may be 80 times higher.

The nuclear power industry has taken a beating recently. The Swiss vote follows Germany’s 2011 decision to phase out all 17 nuclear plants by 2022. France’s new president Emmanuel Macron has appointed a nuclear critic as his energy minister (paywall). In March, Westinghouse, a nuclear power giant, filed for bankruptcy after long delays and cost overruns on its American projects had started weighing on its finances.

Read next: We just avoided nuclear disaster. If we don’t act now, we may not be able to avoid the next one.
In a referendum, Switzerland rejects a proposal to abolish commercial nuclear power by 2029.