Angel Ruiz de Apodaca PHOTO: Manuel Castells

"Spanish nuclear power plants are reaching the end of their service life and there are no new ones planned. If this continues, by 2030 there will be no nuclear energy, in view of the current decisions -for example, in the case of Garoña-, as well as the lower social acceptance of this energy subject after the Fukushima incidents". This was stated today by Ángel Ruiz de Apodaca, professor at the University of Navarra, organizer of the course "Exporting contamination: transnational wastes. Problems and solutions", which will start tomorrow at the academic center.

The first workshop of this event, which will end on the 16th, will be dedicated to the management and problems of radioactive waste and will be attended, among others, by Jorge Lang-Lenton, director of Enresa -business manager of radioactive waste in Spain - and Miren Gutierrez, director general of Greenpeace Spain.

On the occasion of the nuclear accident in Marcoule (France), Ángel Ruiz de Apodaca, professor at Administrative Law, said that it is difficult for "France, the first nuclear power, to opt for an energy policy different from the current one, betting on nuclear despite the incident".

He also highlighted the case of Germany, which decided not to restart any of the eight plants it shut down after Fukushima and has set 2022 as deadline to say goodbye to this form of energy generation. "A vacuum that in the short term deadline cannot be filled with renewables alone, with a greater participation of coal being necessary, with the well-known consequences of polluting emissions, acid rain and the strengthening of the greenhouse effect".

The storeroom Centralized Temporary Power Plant (ATC)

In this sense, he stressed the need to configure a sustainable energy mix that can be assumed without risks: "Fossil fuels (gas, oil, coal) pose problems of dependence and emissions. The commitment must be to renewables, but in the meantime there must be backup energy sources, such as nuclear power, to ensure supply".

Ángel Ruiz de Apodaca stressed that nuclear power is cheap source and does not emit greenhouse gases, but "for many, these advantages are unable to compensate for the risks it entails for the population, a risk that after Fukushima it became clear that it could unfortunately materialize".

Among the disadvantages, he also highlighted the management of nuclear waste, "which remains active for hundreds or thousands of years and constitutes a dangerous bequest for future generations". In Spain, high activity radioactive waste is less than in other countries. storeroom "Specifically, there are 8 reactors in operation, compared to 58 in France or 17 in Germany," the expert said.

The only solution to this problem, for this professor, is the installation of the Centralized Temporary Storage Facility (ATC), whose location has not been decided due to "political reasons". "The spent fuel pools of nuclear power plants have a limited capacity and if a CTS is not chosen, we will have to opt for several ITAs (Individualized Temporary Stores), which would multiply the problem. Temporary storage is a transitory solution for 50-60 years until a solution is chosen final which, at present, only seems to be the deep geological storage of these wastes", he explained.

The course "Exporting contamination: transnational wastes. Problems and solutions" will start tomorrow, Wednesday, at 4.15 pm. After the workshop dedicated to radioactive waste, on Thursday the sessions will focus on the problems of exporting electronic waste and marine dumping and on Friday 16 the program will focus on the management of waste in Navarra and its recent Plan of management. The program is part of the summer courses of the universities of Navarra and is part of a project of research of Institute for Culture and Society of the University of Navarra.