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Spain: 1982 moratorium made definitive

Nuclear Monitor Issue: 
#418
16/09/1994
Article

(September 16, 1994) Beginning of June the Spanish government has taken the decision to stop the construction of five nuclear reactors.

(418.4144) WISE Amsterdam - These five plants were already part of the moratorium of 1982. The construction of the plant at Lemoniz (I and II) was stopped already in 1980 due to different serious sabotages by the Basque separatist group ETA. The construction of Valdecaballeros I and II was in a preliminary stage and of the Trillo II reactor only the road to the site was finished.

This 'victory' is the fruit of an intense campaign of the Spanish ecological movement which has not only insisted on the danger of nuclear energy but which moreover showed, in a country where the unemployment reaches 20%, that a complete other choice of energy system will create more work. In Spain 7 reactors are operating currently. The government announced that the new energy policy will lean on the development of gas plants. The gas will be imported largely from Algeria. At the moment Spain imports already electricity from France (Golfech nuclear reactor). At the same time Spain will pursue its effort in the area of renewable energy: large wind-mills parks are in construction already.

Currently at least two of the seven reactors have serious problems: Garona (technical problems) and the reactor at Zorita has fissures in and near its reactor vessel heads. (see related story WISE NC 408.4043)

The ecological movement had no time to celebrate this small victory being mainly involved in the struggle to shut down these two and the other dangerous nuclear plants.

Sources:

  • Silence (Fr), September 1994
  • Frankfurter Rundschau (FRG), 6 June 1994
  • Aedenat

Contact: Aedenat, Campomanes 13, E-28013 Madrid España.
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