The Government of Spain rejects the possibility of reopening the Garoña nuclear power plant

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The Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge of the Government of Spain, Theresa Riverahe has refused this Tuesday the possibility of reopen the Garoña nuclear power plant. Ribera made this statement in the Senate, in response to a question asked by the senator from EH Bildu Idurre Bideguren, who has conveyed to the Spanish minister her concern about this idea, which she considers “crazy”.

Faced with the energy crisis, the consideration by Brussels of investments in nuclear energy as “green” and the proposal by the Junta de Castilla y León to study reopening the Garoña plant, Bideguren asked the Spanish Government if “it sees any possibility of modifying the schedule for closing nuclear plants”, and if she believes that the reopening of Garoña is possible “with the same technology or with some alternative”, to which the minister has replied by rejecting that idea. The third vice-president of the Government of Spain has crossed out the proposal of the Government of Castilla y León as an “ideological occurrence”, in a nod to “the terminology of the extreme right”, and something that is “impossible and unfeasible”.

In response to @EHBilduCongressthe Spanish Government closes the door to the reopening of Garoña, which it calls an “unfeasible ideological occurrence”.@IdurreBideguren: «The solution to the energy crisis cannot be a proposal anchored to an outdated model such as nuclear energy». pic.twitter.com/czOzgq2qAD

— EH Bildu (@ehbildu) September 20, 2022

Ribera has accused the Junta de Castilla y León of “wasting money from the public budget, which they have neither for forest firefighters, nor for firefighting means, nor to support the people, nor to open the health centers of Castilla y León, in ordering a report that the Nuclear Safety Council would have given him for free”, as well as Nuclenor, the head of Garoña, and which, according to the minister, “would have shown that it makes no sense”.

This plant, whose owner is 50% owned by Endesa and Iberdrola, has a plan “for the dismantling and possible recovery of the area”, recalled Ribera, to also point out that the Government “has reinforced its commitment ” that Garoña is considered one of the “just transition zones”, where the neighbors have already suffered a situation in recent years of “absolute abandonment”.

Ribera lamented that, in “all these years”, the residents of Santa María de Garoña, in Burgos, have not had a plan to dismantle the plant, “neither care, nor prevention, nor any type of alternative measure” .

“We have not the slightest intention of proposing the revision of a calendar that has already been agreed upon by all the owners of the nuclear power plants”, emphasized the minister, in a country which, “fortunately, has enormously powerful indigenous resources, not only to produce electrons and green molecules , but to be one of the main vectors for job creation, services, innovation and industry, such as renewables”.

Bideguren has valued the forcefulness of the vice president, and has rejected the thesis of those who propose the “outdated and unrealistic” commitment to nuclear energy as a solution to the current crisis. The senator added that reopening the nuclear power plant ten years after its closure is a “crazy and irresponsible idea, but not only because of the enormous risk involved, but also because it is not even economically and technically viable.”

In his opinion, the solution to the current energy situation involves deploying renewable energies with public control, transparency, an ecological and social vision, and, in the specific case of Garoña, promoting the economic and social reactivation of the region.