The dictionary says that Machiavellian means ‘to be deceitful, lying, cunning, calculating, sly, cunning and crafty’ and Machiavellian is to say that the closure of Spain’s nuclear power plants is ‘a business decision‘, that ‘it is not a technical question, but an economic one’, that ‘none of the companies have asked for a change in the closure schedule’ or that ‘Spanish electricity companies do not want to extend the life of their nuclear plants because it would require them to invest heavily’.
We nuclear professionals have long been explaining to anyone who will listen that nuclear plants require sustained investment of around 30 million euros a year to keep them up to date and in a condition to operate for many years or, in any case, to operate safely until their last days. We also insist that the Spanish government is ultimately responsible for a fiscal policy that has increased the specific tax burden of the Spanish nuclear fleet by 70% in the last five years, suffocating an economic viability that exists when taxation is applied that does not cover redundant taxes or taxes that do not serve the sector. We recall that the companies that own the nuclear power plants, which are themselves members of the Nuclear Forum, have publicly declared on several occasions (most recently on 20 January), and through this association that includes all of them, their willingness to “open a dialogue with the Ministry“.
On 18 January, civil society, political, trade union and social representatives expressed their concern about the imminent closure of Almaraz (to be followed by the other plants) and their demand for a change in Spain’s energy policy in a demonstration attended by thousands of people. The Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenges responded in a Machiavellian way, shifting the responsibility for the closures onto the companies.
We are not going to go into the question of responsibility, the newspaper archives and the information are there for those who want to understand, but we are going to appeal to the sense of responsibility of our politicians, once again, and while it is still possible to stop this nonsense of closing down nuclear power stations.
Please, think with common sense, without ideological shields, listen to the voices, all of them. It is not a question of who is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, it is a question of jobs being lost, of a loss of quality in meeting Spain’s energy needs, of an increase in the electricity bill or an increase in CO2 emissions, of investment opportunities being lost because data management requires high energy availability in order to be carried out. In short, it is about thinking about citizens, thinking about people and putting our well-being and our future before other criteria.
