SpainÂ’s nuclear plants seen running for decades

SPAIN - Spain may join Germany in relaxing a pledge to scrap nuclear power and let plants run on for decades, softening an anti-nuclear stance that was one of the firmest in Europe.

Less than a year ago, Spain ordered the aging Garona nuclear plant to close rather than renew a 10-year operating permit, in line with a 2008 electoral pledge to replace nuclear power with its successful renewable energy sector.

Permits for another three of Spain's eight nuclear plants expire in June and July 2010, and the government is legally entitled to let them close, too.

However it may allow the Alamaraz I, Almaraz II and Vandellos II plants to run for another 10 years.

Spain's CSN nuclear watchdog has already said in a non-binding report that two of the plants up for renewal are safe to run for another 10 years, although the Industry Ministry has the final say.

Power producers' association UNESA has also said that a government road map for greening Spain's economy has already suggested seven of Spain's nuclear plants would run until at least 2020.

Spain's Economy Ministry expected nuclear power capacity would drop in the next 10 years, but only by 460 megawatts, or the equivalent of the Garona plant.

"No, Garona was not there, but the rest were," a UNESA spokesman said. "Closures are not expected because the government's own outlook shows them operating until 2020."

Apart from electoral vows, the government ordered Garona to close was because its working life was about to reach a 40-year legal limit.

Spain's other plants will not face that barrier until the 2020s, however, and the government recently proposed changing the law to allow them to operate beyond that.

"When an installation has reached the end of its 40-year lifespan, the Cabinet may, at the Industry Ministry's proposal, allow the operator to request an extraordinary renewal, for a period of time to be determined by a CSN report," a Ministry statement said.

Madrid has committed to meet European Union targets of cutting 20 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, and deriving 20 percent of its energy from renewables.

Since last year Germany has committed to extending nuclear lifespans to 60 years, Italy has reversed a ban on nuclear energy and the U.S. government has backed a new nuclear plant.

"I don't see there being any problems," said Javier Dies, a nuclear engineering lecturer at the Catalonia Polytechnic University.

"The international context has become more pro-nuclear in terms of building new plants and renewing permits beyond 40 years, and I think this has to influence the government."

Dies noted that extending lifespans beyond 40 years had a strong precedent in the United States, where 55 plants will be allowed to run until they are 60.

Although Spain is prepared to keep its nuclear plants, there is no sign it will join in a "nuclear renaissance" under way in other countries and build new reactors.

A government source noted that utilities were allowed to build nuclear power stations in Spain, subject to approval by the regulator, but had no plans to.

"Electricity generation has been liberalized in Spain since 1998, but so far not one utility has applied for a permit to build a nuclear plant," he said.

Nuclear power is unpopular in Spain and even if Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialist government loses elections in 2012, as polls predict, the opposition Popular Party has not committed to building new plants.

Furthermore, national grid operator REE says Spain does not need more than the steady 20 percent of its electricity supply provided by nuclear plants.

REE Chairman Luis Atienza estimates expanding nuclear power would force too many of Spain's other, more flexible generating plants to halt when demand drops to overnight lows.

"We don't have the base demand to make building new nuclear plants viable," Atienza said in a recent lecture at the Nuclear Safety Council CSN.