ZURICH (SWITZERLAND) – The country has closed its 355-megawatt Muehleberg power station near Bern creating issues that are more than just energy supplies: the availability of iodine tablets for people to swallow in the event of an atomic catastrophe is also at risk.
For years, the country at 10-year intervals has handed out potassium iodide tablets to residents within 50 kilometres (31.07 miles) of the nuclear stations that historically have accounted for a quarter of Swiss energy production.
Businesses also get a separate supply.
Now the country has shuttered its and is dismantling the reactor that operated from 1972 to 2019, the next round of tablets due to be handed out come 2024 – the old ones are due to expire then – must be reconfigured.
In 2014, the last time Switzerland handed out iodine, it gave tablets to nearly 5 million people in 1.9 million households, in 1,350 communities.
The government did not immediately say if fewer tablets would be going out the next time, as Muehleberg will be offline. The Swiss population has grown, from about 8.1 million in 2014, to 8.6 million, so that could make up the difference.
The government said on Wednesday the upcoming distribution will cost 15 million Swiss francs ($16.31 million), with operators of Switzerland’s remaining three nuclear power stations – Beznau, Goesgen and Leibstadt, all located not far from the German and French borders – paying 11 million francs of the total cost.
Switzerland also swaps out iodine pills it separately gives to cantons outside the 50 km radius every decade for emergency distribution, with that last exchange in 2020.
Such deliveries are normal, with US states, including Delaware, also distributing tablets to residents within 10 miles of plants. France handed out free tablets to 2.2 million people two years ago.