2023-06-05 07:39:54
The Government had been accelerating the work for the approval of the new General Radioactive Waste Plan (PGRR) with the aim of updating the roadmap on how to manage waste, how to dismantle the nuclear power plants and how much and how to pay for all jobs over the next few decades. The Ministry for the Ecological Transition has already prepared a final version of the plan and the intention was to give the last formal approval in the coming weeks.
He electoral advance leaves the approval of the new plan in the air. From the department directed by Teresa Ribera, it is not confirmed if there is an intention to carry out the text before the general elections of 23J, despite the fact that the sector assumed that it was imminent. The approval in the coming weeks of the strategic environmental impact study of the nuclear waste plan, to subsequently pass the new roadmap through the Council of Ministers.
The plan of the Government of Pedro Sánchez goes through build seven different warehouses to store radioactive waste, one in each of the Spanish nuclear plants. The intention is keep nuclear waste in each plant after its closurewhose staggered closure is scheduled between 2027 and 2035. The waste will remain there for decades, until a deep geological repository (AGP) is built with the aim of being operational in 2073 and storing the waste forever.
The ‘no’ to Villar de Cañas
After keeping both options open for months, the Socialist Executive finally ruled out building a single nuclear cemetery to store the waste and is committed to having seven different warehouses. The upcoming electoral contest for the general elections reopens the battle on this matter, because the Popular Party of Alberto Núñez Feijóo not only defends reviewing the closure schedule agreed with the electric companies and defended by the Executive, it also explicitly supports the option of a single warehouse and revive the project to build it in Villar de Cañasin Cuenca.
Barely a month after the arrival of Pedro Sánchez in Moncloa after the motion of no confidence in 2018, the recently released Executive paralyzed all the processing related to the construction of a centralized temporary warehouse (ATC) in Villar de Cañas and urged the Security Council Nuclear (CSN) to temporarily suspend the study of the project due to the doubts of the technicians about the quality of the land and the rejection of the regional Administration.
He Popular Party has defended in recent months the reactivation of the Villar de Cañas project in the Congress of Deputies, he also included it as one of the measures in his programmatic proposal to face the energy crisis and his candidate for mayor of the town of Cuenca has defended it in the last electoral campaign of the 28M elections (which has winning result).
While waiting to know the electoral program for the general elections at the end of July, the PP defended a few months ago in its document ‘In defense of families and companies. For the recovery of the Spanish economy’, “immediately unblock the construction of the temporary centralized waste storage facility in Villar de Cañas (Cuenca)”, emphasizing that the project “has more than 47,000 hours of CSN technical study and would be missing around 800 hours for completion”.
No consensus between AAPP
The Ministry for Ecological Transition has been alleging that the “lack of social, political and institutional consensus” demonstrated during the period of allegations of the draft of the new General Radioactive Waste Plan made the option of a single centralized warehouse “unfeasible”. From the nuclear sector it is recognized that it is due to the fact that no autonomous community supported the possibility of hosting the nuclear cemetery in its territory, despite the interest of some municipalities.
In fact, the Junta de Castilla-La Mancha, headed by the socialist Emiliano García Page (recently re-elected with an absolute majority in the last regional elections), has insistently shown for years and by all means -with legislative reforms, in which courts…- his outright rejection of the construction of the nuclear cemetery in Villar de Cañas. The election of the municipality of Cuenca to host the ATC was approved in 2011 by the Government of Mariano Rajoy, with the support of the regional Board then headed by the also popular María Dolores de Cospedal.
clash with electric
The government’s plan to build seven nuclear cemeteries is the option that most rrejection generated among the electricity companies themselves that the power plants operate, as it is the most expensive alternative (2,100 million euros more than building a single warehouse) and for condemning the current sites of the nuclear plants to store this waste for decades and without being able to develop other industrial projects on the land after the closure and dismantling of the power plants.
The nuclear employers’ association -in which Iberdrola, Endesa, Naturgy and EDP are integrated- have already warned of their opposition to assuming the billionaire extra cost that having seven warehouses and the surrounding facilities necessary to guarantee their safety and the treatment of waste. What worries electric companies especially, as confirmed by sources in the nuclear sector, is that the forecasts of what still remains to be paid until the year 2100 to manage nuclear waste -19,200 million when opting for the seven temporary silos- imply an extra cost unexpected 2,000 million at constant prices in relation to the previous draft that would lead to an increase in the rates paid by power plants to finance waste management.
Endesa, Iberdrola, Naturgy and EDP They blame these extra costs on the enormous delay accumulated by the old project for the construction of a centralized temporary warehouse in Villar de Cañas due to a lack of political consensus, and for this reason they refuse to assume them. The proposal of the large electric companies included in their report of allegations to the PGRR draft is to consider these additional amounts as costs of the electricity system and charge them at the electricity rate paid by all consumers.
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