Switzerland’s Once-a-Decade Nuclear Ritual

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ZURICH — Switzerland is in the middle of a ritual it performs once a decade: distributing a fresh round of iodine pills to protect its people should something go wrong with one of its nuclear power plants.

Residents who live within 50 kilometers of one of the nation’s three nuclear power plants will find an orange package with a dozen tablets in their mailbox by next April. The delivery replaces the lilac box of thyroid cancer prevention medication that the government handed out 10 years ago.

The campaign may seem like a Cold War relic to some — newly arrived expatriates are often startled to be handed a voucher for their pills when they first register at the town hall. But the idea is that sirens would sound in the event of a nuclear accident so that people could take a dose before any fallout reaches them.

The pills containing the compound potassium iodide are distributed free of charge, including in the financial and industrial centers of Zurich and Basel. People living within the 50-kilometer radius, but on the German side of the border, are left to fend for themselves.

The logistical effort costs 34 million Swiss francs (€35.9 million) — a third of which is financed by the nuclear power plant operators. Beyond protecting the health of the Swiss people, the strategy is part of the country’s long-standing identity of neutrality, dubbed Reduit Switzerland, or Swiss Fortress. That pride of self-defense still manifests today in a multitude of well-maintained tank stoppers and bunkers spread throughout the Swiss Alps.

While Germany and France are battling these days over the role of nuclear power in Europe’s energy transition, Switzerland is proceeding on its path of risk mitigation — keeping its remaining three atomic plants running as long as they are functioning, as decided by a public vote in 2017. It retired a fourth in Muehlenberg in 2019.

A survey of 9,000 Swiss conducted by a local newspaper earlier this year found that 56% are in favor of building new nuclear installations, while only 37% support the Green Party’s initiative to get out of nuclear power by 2037.

Depending on where the debate ends up, there may be only one more batch of iodine tablets in Switzerland’s future.

— Paula Doenecke, Switzerland reporter