Spain to keep reactors past 40 year cutoff 

Government renews three of eight reactors for another ten years

A long-standing Spanish government policy of phasing out the nation's 7.5 GWe of nuclear powered electricity (18% of total electricity) is being reversed both in the form of new policy and in renewal of the operating licenses for three of the nation's eight nuclear reactors. Spain's Congress last week ratified new legislation that means the reactors can operate for longer than 40 years.

Spain is also working on uprates to its other nuclear reactors with 519 MW of an 810 MW program completed in 2010.  The three reactors which were renewed are Almaraz, two 1,000 MW PWRs and Vandellos 2, a 1,045 MW PWR.  It is expected the government will renew Cofrentes, a 1,063 MW BWR.

The moves are a complete turnaround from a prior government policy of phasing out the nation's nuclear plants. Most public opinion about nuclear energy is negative and neither political party has supported reactor life extension until now.

That policy was symbolized by the government's decision to limit the license renewal for the Garona reactor, a 446 MW BWR built in 1971, to just four years. This decision overrides one by the Nuclear Safety Council of Spain which said it was safe to extend the license by 10 years. The reactor is now scheduled to close in 2013.

The amendment to a law on economic sustainability removed the 40-year limitation, but does not mandate the future mix of energy sources to supply electricity. Spain gets 31% of its power from gas and another 24% of coal which is combined with 18% from nuclear.

Spain's nuclear power stations are owned by a series of interlocking joint ventures among Spanish utilities. One of them, Endesa, is 92% owned by an Italian electric utility. However, Spain's electric grid is almost completely isolated from the rest of Europe which makes energy security a leading factor in the government's decision to keep the reactors running past the artificial 40-year deadline. 

Spanish utilities have complained that base load power is needed to sustain the government's overly ambitious renewable energy program. The national grid cannot be sustained with the intermittent power from solar cells and wind towers.

Energy sustainability drive

The Spanish nuclear industry association Foro Nuclear said in a statement that it is vital for the government to consider a comprehensive energy policy with three key components – energy security, competitive prices for energy in all forms, and sustainability over time.

A spokesman for the nuclear professional society, Eugeni Vives, told Platts the new law "is a big step forward and very important" to the future of energy policy in Spain.

The Spanish government still has some licensing decisions coming up in 2011. Asco Units 1 & 2, 900 MW PWRs built in the early 80s, have licenses that expire this year. A key decision is the license extension for the 1,000 MW Cofrentes plant by the end of March.

Solar subsidies tank investors

Spain's energy future took a turn for the worse in 2009 when the government phased out Europe's most generous solar energy rate subsidy. A 2007 law offered investors a feed-in tariff of $0.44/kwhr which is more than eight times the wholesale rate for electricity from the eight nuclear plants. The subsidies were guaranteed for 15 years.

The government is now facing (euro) 126 billion ($172 billion) in long-term obligations and has pulled the plug on the subsidies throwing 50,000 investors into financial difficulty. The government's goal had been to develop 400 MW of electricity from solar power, but the program, with its generous terms, was wildly over-subscribed to the tune of 3,500 MW. 

The government had hoped to generate Spanish jobs with manufacturing of solar panels. What it did not anticipate is that the majority of panels used for new solar rooftop installations turned out to be cheap imports from China. Few permanent jobs were created by the program. Spain is also one of Europe's more troubled economies with a burst real estate bubble. The government can ill-afford any more adventures in renewable energy.

According to the Bloomberg wire service, Spain's experience is a lesson for the green-energy crowd including supporters of President Obama in the U.S. Even with billions of euros in subsidies, says Ramon de la Sota, a private investor in Spanish photovoltaic panels and a former General Electric Co. executive, “The government totally overshot with the tariff. Now they have a huge bill to pay -- but where’s the technology, where’s the know-how, where’s the value?”

Greenpeace doesn't get the memo

It isn't clear that the government's new plan for the nation's nuclear reactors is shared by all segments of the country. Greenpeace activists climbed a cooling tower Feb 15 at the 1,000 MW Cofrentes nuclear power station and painted protest slogans on it.

The environmental group called on the Spanish Nuclear Safety Council to reject the plant's application to renew its operating permit. A decision to extend the plant's license by 10 years is expected by the end of March.

The Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) said the reactor facility manager had declared an emergency alert, but was working normally after 14 activists broke through the perimeter fence. They did not enter the security zone of the reactor itself. but did get to the cooling towers. Two plant guards suffered minor injuries in fights with the Greenpeace activists.

Greenpeace said in a statement, "We ask the government, employers and unions to give unwavering support to renewable energy, if only for its enormous job-creation potential, and forget about nuclear power, which is not only dirty and dangerous but generates relatively few jobs."

Clearly, Greenpeace did not pay attention to the collapse of the Spanish solar energy program. Also, the group failed to notice the 800 or so high paying, permanent jobs at each of Spain's other nuclear power stations.

Photographs posted on Greenpeace's Web site showed "Nuclear Danger" painted on the side of the 410 foot high tower and an unfurled banner with the slogan "Close Cofrentes now."

Maybe now Spanish nuclear engineers will replace the anti-nuclear slogan with one that represents the country's new energy sustainability focus like "Keep the lights on with clean nuclear energy," or Mantenga las luces encendidas con la energía nuclear limpia!

Although Spain's government has ruled out building new nuclear reactors, its energy plans assumes the other seven plants will still be running in 2020. Sorry Greenpeace, but you have to go home now.

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