Felipe González: “I stopped nuclear weapons in Spain and now we need nuclear weapons in Spain, it’s curious”
Felipe González spoke out in favor of nuclear power as “clean energy” in the midst of the political debate on extending the useful life of the Almaraz power plant (Cáceres), which has two of the seven Spanish reactors and whose closure is scheduled for 2027. “I stopped nuclear energy in Spain and now in Spain we need nuclear energy, it’s curious,” the former Prime Minister observed in the first edition of Los Desayunos del Campo at the Hotel Mandarin Oriental Ritz in Madrid, in which he acknowledged that it presents “some dangers” but “is clean from an (environmental) point of view”, ignoring the treatment of the radioactive waste it generates.
“We recognized without believing that nuclear power is clean energy and now the development of nuclear power is much more perfect than before,” said González, who acknowledged that a nuclear accident cannot be ruled out despite technological advances and improved safety measures. The former president, who also declared himself “in favor” of renewables despite not considering them perfect: “We have waste from renewable energy, it has not yet been sufficiently studied. If you have a useful life of 40 years, what will happen to those at 40 years? These things must be foreseen”.
Pedro Sánchez opened the door to the expansion of Almaraz until 2030 as hoped by Ibedrola, Naturgy and Endesa, the companies that own the plant. “The Government does not have a dogmatic position at all, but rather a pragmatic one. If the owners of the nuclear power plants guarantee the security of the territories and the energy supply, and do not ask us Spaniards to pay more taxes in order to earn money, then we are willing to study what their alternative is, what their proposal is. But they must respect these three requests which, in my opinion, are pure common sense”, he declared in an interview with EL PAÍS. Sumar Congress spokeswoman Verónica Martínez Barbero said Tuesday that “the closure of nuclear power plants is a government agreement and the PSOE must respect it.” Last week the Senate approved a PP amendment to the law on sustainable mobility, on which the disbursement of 10 billion euros from Brussels depends, which postpones the date of definitive cessation of exploitation of Almaraz, Ascó I (Tarragona) and Cofrentes (Valencia).
