Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is a self-proclaimed anti-nuclear warrior.When you're addicted to natural gas in Europe, it means you're addicted to Russian, Algerian and Iranian natural gas. As we've seen, that's awfully problematic.
When the aging Jose Cabrera nuclear reactor, about 100 kilometers (63 miles) east of Madrid, was shuttered in April, Zapatero refused to consider a new atomic plant. Instead, the reactor will be replaced with a generator that burns North African gas. Zapatero pledged last month to unveil a plan by the elections in 2008 to phase out all nuclear reactors.
Four decades after dictator General Francisco Franco bet on nuclear power to reduce dependence on foreign energy, Spain is Western Europe's fastest-growing natural gas importer. The shift has come with a steep price tag: The cost of energy imports rose 66 percent in two years to 32.1 billion euros ($41 billion) in 2005, the National Statistics Office in Madrid said.
``We are putting ourselves at the mercy of gas,'' Pedro Rivero, the chairman of Madrid-based Unesa, a utilities' trade group, said in an interview last month.
Gas-fed reactors produce power for about 35 euros a megawatt-hour compared with 14 euros for nuclear plants, according to Madrid-based Union Fenosa SA, owner of the Jose Cabrera plant. Spain gets 75 percent of its energy from fossil fuels, more than the 50 percent average for the European Union.
Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Electricity, Environment, Energy, Politics, Russia, Spain
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