During 2008, nuclear was, once more, the energy source that functioned for the greatest amount of hours. It produced almost one fifth of total electricity, specifically 18.3%, and prevented the annual emission of about 40 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere; that is the equivalent to the emissions from half of the Spanish car fleet.

Last year, Spain’s eight working nuclear reactors produced 58,767 GWh, 6.6% more than the 2007 production. This amount represented 18.3% of the country’s total electrical production, which was achieved with just 8.14% of the potency installed in the totality of the Spanish nuclear generation facilities.

Operating permits

The next nuclear power plant to renew its Operating Permit will be Santa María de Garoña. In this respect, and in keeping with the legislation in force, on July 3rd 2006 Nuclenor submitted to the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade a request for renewal of the Operating Permit for the Santa María de Garoña nuclear power plant.

Political situation on nuclear issues

Regarding future decision taking, the Garoña nuclear power plant must renovate its working license before the first week of July. For this reason, the Nuclear Regulatory Council (CSN) will elaborate a technical report that will be sent to the Ministry. The Ministry must decide on the plant’s future according to the report, but the conditioning of the Socialist government might influence this decision.

Safety and waste management

Construction of the three first nuclear power plants in Spain started in 1964. The first one to be built was José Cabrera, Zorita, a small pressurised water reactor. A medium-sized boiling water reactor, Santa María de Garoña, was built two years later, followed by Vandellos-1, a medium sized gas-cooled reactor similar to Uk’s Magnox units. In the 1970s, 6 pressurised water reactors were constructed. Spain’s nuclear power plants are therefore Western designed ones and comply with Western safety standards. Moreover they are being upgraded. In 1980 the Consejo de Securidad Nuclear (Nuclear Security Council) was set up to take over both nuclear safety and radiological protection matters. Licensing is under a 1964 law and 1999 regulations by the Economy Ministry, advised by CSN and the Ministry of Environment. Civil liability for nuclear damage is covered under international conventions to which Spain is party, the IAEA Vienna Convention and the OECD Paris and Brussels Conventions. Operators need to cover € 150 million.

The Spanish radioactive waste management agency ENRESA was set up in 1984 to take over management of the low and intermediate level radioactive wastes generated in Spain, spent fuel and the dismantling of the nuclear power plants. Periodically, ENRESA draws up the General Radioactive Waste Plan (GRWP), which is subject to approval by the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce and contains an assessment of the costs of such management and of the amounts to be collected each year for transfer to the financial fund set up to cover these costs in the future. Waste management and decommissioning is funded by a levy of about 1% on all electricity consumed.

The low-and medium-level waste storage center of El Cabril is located in the northwest part of the province of Cordoba in the foothills of the Sierra Albarrana and within the municipal district of Hornachuelos. It started operation in 1992 and its installations have been designed and built with the most advanced storage technologies, and integration with the environment has been considered of high importance. At the moment, all the high level wastes are in the spent fuel pools of the nuclear plants and only the nuclear power plant of Trillo (Guadalajara) has also a dry repository. But ENRESA is planning to build, with the agreement of all the politician groups, a temporally centralized repository to management all the high level wastes. According to the General Radioactive Waste Plan (updated in 2004), the cost of managing spent fuel, radioactive wastes and the dismantling of the current Spanish nuclear power plants is estimated at 12,000 million euros. In June 2003, ENRESA completed the dismantling and decommissioning of the reactor at the Vandellós I Nuclear Power Plant (500 MWe GCR).

The Spanish nuclear power plants have been designed to temporarily store their spent fuel in pools constructed for this purpose at their own installations.  If the storage capacity of these pools becomes saturated, the spent fuel is stored in a temporary dry storage facility.  This has been the case at Trillo Nuclear Power Plant, where a temporary dry storage facility was started up in 2002 as a result of the plant pool having reached saturation.

Climate Change

In November 2007 the Forum of the Spanish Nuclear Industry commissioned a survey to gain insight into the position of Spanish society with respect to energy, the environment and nuclear power.  This was a continuation of work performed in 2004 and has allowed us to analyse changes in attitudes.

The main conclusion that may be drawn from survey EN 07 is as follows: the context of thinking, reflection and opinion and of assessment and preferences in energy issues is currently marked, stamped and bounded by the phenomenon of climate change.  This phenomenon is not new, although its acceleration is and has given rise, continuing with the motoring metaphor, to talk of putting a brake on climate change.

This change in framework or context has clear consequences as regards perceptions and evaluations of nuclear energy, the use of this energy source to produce electricity at nuclear power plants.  We are told that if it implies an increase in energy consumption, socio-economic development constitutes a contradiction to the need to put a brake on climate change, since such development is considered to be n undoubtedly positive value.  Consequently, bad energy, the energy that leads to concerns and implies the production of harmful wastes, occupies and important position, or at least is not as clearly and emphatically rejected as it has been in the past.

Spanish public opinion accepts talking of “guaranteed energy supply”, “clean production without the emission of greenhouse gases”, “response to electricity demand under any condition”, etc., as a result of which it is possible and appropriate to promote the energy debate in these terms.  This does not mean, however, that we clearly understand the issue or even its basic concepts.  Evidently, the higher one’s level of education, the more the energy issue will be subject to judgement instead of prejudice, but it should not be forgotten that political position, the question of right and left, has a greater influence than studies.

The group of people who are in favour of using the nuclear energy produced by the plants has increased, but on the other hand the number of people who are against just this has not decreased.  In other words, some people who were or claimed to be undecided have moved to the ranks of those voting in favour, who now represent 23% of the population (+/-2.4, between 21 and 25%).  Consequently, the work performed has not been in vain, especially in the press (daily readers of newspapers: less contrary than those who do not read the press daily).