The impending power shortage is making parliament move. Today’s energy debate in the Council of States was about massive support for renewable energies. For this, however, environmental protection regulations are to be relaxed – or eliminated straight away. One of the architects behind these proposals is Ruedi Noser, member of the Zurich Free Democratic Party (FDP).
SRF News: How is heat and electricity produced in the Noser household?
Ruedi Noser: The heat, unfortunately, with gas – and the electricity will probably come from hydropower. From Glarnerland.
You said in the Council today: our generation has failed. What do you mean by that?
We have not built up any additional electricity production in our country in the last 20 years. Everything that we used additionally was solved through imports. This is a clear failure of politics. We are currently unable to approve renewable energy installations.
You now want to change that – and very quickly. The new renewable energies are to be expanded twice as fast as proposed by the Federal Council. As?
If we want to achieve the energy transition, we need two terawatt hours of new energy every year. Every year – until 2035. That is a huge challenge. Two terawatt hours is roughly the equivalent of adding one Grand Dixence hydroelectric power station each year.
And that’s what you, and the majority of the Council of States, want to achieve now by simply undermining nature conservation and environmental protection.
We are expanding solar power, also in the Mittelland, on the buildings. But we’re still a long way from that. In the next few years, one or two major projects will be needed that can be implemented quickly. This requires one or the other exception in environmental protection.
One or the other exception… Environmental protection is simply undermined. Residual water, biotopes of national importance, biodiversity: all of this is overridden.
We have lost 1.2 terawatt hours of water power in the last 20 years, all for the biotopes. Another loss of two terawatt hours is planned. We cannot afford this loss unless we make faster progress with solar energy – which, by the way, we have also decided. And there is a paragraph that says: If you are on schedule with the expansion, then these relaxations in environmental protection will be reversed. But it needs an energy master plan at the moment.
The problem is, you can’t get away with it. They do not get majorities, neither in the National Council nor in the population. Because the referendum of the environmental organizations is already clear.
I look forward to the vote. Consider: The whole of Switzerland has received a letter that electricity may be rationed in winter. That means: loss of prosperity and unemployment. We have an extraordinary situation, and extraordinary measures are needed in an extraordinary situation.
Extraordinary measures are required in an extraordinary situation.
It is no longer enough just to make laws that have no effect. The Grimsel expansion has been in the approval process for 20 years. We need to be able to increase electricity production again.
Even the NZZ wrote today: It is disproportionate to undermine all principles of environmental, landscape and nature conservation.
I am assuming that we will correct something in Parliament. One or the other requirement is a bit extreme, I see it that way too. But it was important in the Commission that we have a clear template so that the energy that we need in our country can also be produced.
Urs Leuthard conducted the interview.