Fourth
European country to begin phase out
31 May 2006 - Madrid, Spain
— The nuclear industry recently launched a multi-million
dollar campaign to try and revive the most expensive,
dangerous, and polluting way to boil water ever
invented. Spain is having none of it. The nation's
president has confirmed that the country's 8 operating
plants will be phased out in favour of clean,
renewable energy.
Industry lobby groups have been
trying to sell 10 new nuclear plants in Spain,
and have fought hard for legislation that would
allow existing plants to operate past their planned
retirement dates.
But President José Luis
Rodríguez Zapatero has confirmed the government's
commitment to the phase-out in his State of the
Nation address.
“Zapatero has shown true leadership
in preparing the phase out of this dangerous and
polluting problem and phasing in safe renewable
energy sources,” said Jan Vande Putte of Greenpeace
International.
“All across the world the nuclear
industry is drowning in debt, controversy and
its massive waste issues. It is only kept afloat
by the likes of Blair and Bush who are pouring
billions of dollars of public money into an industry
which reached the end of its life over a decade
ago.”
Greenpeace was part of a national
coalition of environmental and civic groups which
on May 20th unanimously petitioned the government
to deliver on election promises of "safer,
cleaner, cheaper" energy.
Zapatero agreed not only to
the phase-out, but to a widely consultative process
to find a solution to what to do with existing
radioactive waste.
In a bid to resurrect a failing
industry, regular claims of a nuclear power revival
have been made – the most recent using climate
change as an excuse to spend further billions
to build more reactors.
But renewable energy is now
taking the lead, with a single source such as
wind energy adding more than 6,000 megawatts to
the European grid every year, the equivalent to
two large nuclear reactors. In only a few years,
wind power in Spain has grown to 8 percent of
the national electricity production. In 2005 alone,
some 1680 megawatts of new wind power were installed,
generating four times as much electricity as the
Zorita nuclear power plant which Spain closed
last month.
Spain joins Sweden, Germany
and Belgium as the fourth European country to
abandon nuclear power.
