The Ministry for the Ecological Transition rejects changing the closure schedule of the Spanish nuclear power plants that was agreed in 2019 with the electricity companies, which are the owners of these facilities.
This legislature will be key to this decommissioning plan, which will start in 2027 with the disconnection of the first of the two reactors operating at the Almaraz plant, in the province of Cáceres.
By 2035, all the country's power plants will have closed – five plants with seven reactors in total – if the route agreed five years ago by the Executive with Iberdrola, Endesa, Naturgy and EDP is followed.
Sources from the ministry headed by the third vice president, Teresa Ribera, assure that this department does not contemplate modifying the calendar despite the noise that the nuclear
lobby
is making .
The former socialist president Felipe González has also come out in defense of nuclear energy, who has charged against renewables.
A week ago, the Spanish Nuclear Industry Forum publicly asked the coalition government to rethink “the closure schedule of Spanish nuclear power plants to operate them beyond the currently established deadlines.”
This organization was born in the sixties of the last century and represents the interests of this sector.
In addition to the electricity companies, other actors such as engineering companies, service companies, suppliers and other associations are part of it.
According to the Nuclear Forum on January 23, the “energy situation has changed substantially in recent years,” so it would be advisable to rethink that calendar.
The nuclear
lobby
is very active around the world in the face of the increasingly robust advance of renewable energies.
At the last climate summit, which was held in Dubai in December, it achieved something important: that explicit mention was made of nuclear technology in the section of the final text in which all countries were urged to make the transition towards a world without fossil fuels.
“Maintaining the operation of the Spanish nuclear park is in line with the resolution approved at the recent COP28,” said the Nuclear Forum on January 8 in another statement in which it criticized the new radioactive waste plan, approved at the end of December by the Government and that paves the way for the closure of the plants in Spain.
But, after that agreement was closed in Dubai, Ribera made it clear in an interview in EL PAÍS that the Executive's plans continued to be the progressive elimination of nuclear energy.
“What this section of the agreement says [in reference to the final text of COP28] is that we have to accelerate zero and low emissions technologies in the energy sector.
List, to choose from, many different ones (...) There may be people who go directly to nuclear energy or who stay only in nuclear energy.
There will be people who will try to accelerate the use of hydrogen…”
The path chosen in Spain is clearly based on renewables in the electricity sector.
To the calls in defense of nuclear power, an unexpected ally emerged this Monday for many due to the controversial arguments used: the former socialist president Felipe González.
At an event in Seville about forest fires, González attacked renewables and equated radioactive waste with waste from photovoltaic and wind installations.
He incorrectly stated that it is not foreseen who will have the “responsibilities” of dismantling the photovoltaic parks.
Furthermore, he maintained that the materials with which the panels are manufactured come from “slave labor” and “are never recyclable.”
There has been a lot of criticism against the former president, fundamentally, because of the incorrectness of his statements.
They have also come to him from the PSOE.
Nicolás González, a member of the European Parliament of this party, said on Monday through the social network X: “As a socialist I could not be more disappointed.
I confess that I did not see Felipe González coming, attacking the energy transition, which is an opportunity for Spain, with false and brother-in-law arguments.
I don't know who advises him, but it is pure climate denialism.
What a pity".
Countdown to Almaraz
Despite the public pronouncements of the Nuclear Forum, the Ministry for the Ecological Transition assures that none of the companies that own the Spanish plants have approached this department to ask to “prolong the life” of these facilities “beyond what is established in the agreed calendar.”
And time is ticking in favor of closure.
The first Almaraz unit must stop operating before November 1, 2027 and the second before October 31, 2028. But a cessation of this type cannot be done in any way and a year before stopping the procedures must begin. before the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN).
The president of this supervisory body, Juan Carlos Lentijo, said this Tuesday that preliminary conversations have already begun with the owner of this facility.
In a meeting with the media, Lentijo made it clear that the scenario with which the CSN is working is compliance with the closure schedule of the nuclear park agreed between the Government and the electricity companies.
In the event that Almaraz wanted to request another extension beyond November 2027, the CSN security guidelines indicate that work should begin three years before the deadline, although Lentijo has left the door open to a certain flexibility in the deadlines.
The roadmap for the closure of the plants is included in the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (Pniec).
In addition, it is also included in the new national radioactive waste plan that the Council of Ministers approved on December 27.
Although what has made the most noise has been the request to modify the closure schedule of atomic plants, the costs derived from the new waste plan could represent a significant clash between the electricity companies and the Government.
The public company Enresa is responsible for the management of radioactive waste in Spain.
But the costs must be assumed by the companies that generate them, fundamentally, the electricity companies.
The new waste plan establishes that treating this waste will cost 20.22 billion euros between 2024 and 2100. But the rates that plant owners now pay are not enough to cover all that this management will cost.
In January, the Government presented a new draft royal decree in which an increase of almost 40% in rates was established, going from 7.98 euros per megawatt hour produced at the moment to 11.14 euros.
A good part of this increase is due to the fact that, finally, the Executive has opted for the construction of seven temporary warehouses to store spent fuel instead of a centralized one, since no autonomous community has wanted that silo to be in its territory.
A few days ago, Nuclear Forum also charged against this increase: “The extra costs of this plan represent a substantial change compared to the conditions under which the agreement was reached” in 2019, where the increase in the agreed rates was 20% and not 20%. 40%.
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