Jos Deuling,  Monday, 16 April 2012


Planning to buy a second home in Spain? Spain has 7 nuclear power plants. Search in Google maps for Spanish nuclear power reactors within a radius of 50, 100, 150, 200 or 250 kilometers of a given location. Click on the marker for a pop-up with the name, address and Wikipedia url of the power plant.

In 1983, a moratorium was adopted, that would actually mean the abandonment of nuclear power. Thereafter, however, several more nuclear plants were completed. New plans were postponed and were finally discarded in 1994.

2004 saw a change of government in Spain. The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party PSOE replaced the conservative Popular Party. In 2006, the new government decided to phase out nuclear power by 2024. The phasing out of nuclear energy should be gradual.

After the change of government in the parliamentary election of 2011, when the conservative People's Party PP reached the absolute majority of seats, it was decided to set up a centralised storage facility for Spanish nuclear spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste in Villar de Cañas.

In February 2012, the Minister of Industry announced the extension of the duration of the nuclear power plant in Santa María de Garoña for five years from 2013 to 2018.

Although there are laws that prohibit the further expansion of nuclear energy, the Spanish Government maintains that only through the expansion of nuclear energy, they can meet the planned reductions in greenhouse gases.