The General Council of Official Colleges of Industrial Engineers (Cgcoii) maintains that the recent favorable opinion of the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) to extend the operating license of the Almaraz Nuclear Power Plant until June 2030 reinforces the technical convenience of prolonging its operation, in order not to compromise the stability of the electrical system, avoid an increase in the electricity bill, and contain the rise in CO2 emissions.
The professional collective emphasizes that the regulator's position constitutes a "technical backing" for the conclusions included in its own report published last March. In that document, the engineers already warned that closing the Extremaduran facility without a viable alternative would jeopardize the security of supply in Spain.
After the CSN's approval, which confirms that the plant meets the safety conditions required to continue operating until 2030, the General Council stresses that the final decision now corresponds to the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge.
WITHOUT EQUIVALENT TECHNICAL ALTERNATIVE
From the Cgcoii, they insist that Spain "still does not have an equivalent technical alternative" capable of replacing nuclear production without straining the electrical grid. In their view, as long as storage solutions and advanced voltage control systems that allow for the complete integration of renewable energies are not fully deployed, giving up nuclear power would force an increase in the use of combined cycle plants that operate with natural gas.
This scenario, they emphasize, would lead to a rise in pollutant emissions and an increase in energy dependence on foreign sources in an international context marked by geopolitical instability.
"It is difficult to justify from a strictly technical point of view the non-extension of the operational life of Spanish nuclear plants as long as there are no equivalent solutions," argues the General Council.
THE WEIGHT OF THE NUCLEAR PARK IN SPAIN
Industrial engineers again highlight the role of this technology in the national electricity 'mix', recalling that the Spanish nuclear park contributes around 20% of electricity generation with only 5% of the installed capacity.
In the same way, they emphasize that nuclear energy has a diversified fuel supply on an international scale, offers competitive generation costs when it does not bear additional tax burdens, and presents virtually zero CO2 emissions during the electricity production phase.
For these reasons, the organization demands that public officials base the debate on Spain's energy model on "technical knowledge, supply security, environmental sustainability, and economic competitiveness" and not on approaches conditioned by political criteria.