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24/11/2008 Nuclear power or ascent of the light
The nuclear power is nowadays upon the table of all the debates because in Spain we were with an openwork problem tremendous. We have a tariff deficit of more than 16,000 million Euros and that grew the last year in 4.700 million Euros, this means that and so we paid in the receipt of the light we did not cover what costs, the excess of cost is a species of loan that does the electrical ones to the state but which sooner or later we will have to pay and that the electrical companies consider untenable.
In order to locate us in the context of the nuclear power, we have including an explanation of the present frame in which is the nuclear power in Spain at the end of the article.
Thus the Spaniards we were with four options:
- To accept an ascent of the receipt of the light near 20% to compensate that deficit.
- To reduce the electrical power consumption substantially. This alternative would not reduce the present deficit, but it would cause that it grew more slowly since to greater consumption more deficit.
- To favor the nuclear power like via compensating this deficit, but like:
The nuclear power is cheapest reason why if it is increased the production of energy by this route would stop taking place by other more expensive routes like the thermal energy (main source of energy in Spain).
 It would compensate the tariff deficit since with more nuclear power we could reduce the cost of the energy below the receipt of the present light and thus to be paying the generated deficit; until now we have paid less than what is worth and now we would pay more than it is worth.
If Spain decided to favor this route, there would be two options, to increase the installed capacity of the present nuclear power stations by means of investment, which also would favor to other Spanish companies that participated in the project or to return to start up the projects of power stations that became paralyzed in the call nuclear moratorium.
The critical major that is done to him to this energy is that him polluting agent fault. It is certain that it generates residues that there are to store during long time, but is not more polluting, but less, than the thermal energy that brings about a serious greenhouse effect. With favoring the nuclear power, nontenth that there is to produce more electricity but to replace with nuclear power another one more polluting agent than it is the thermal energy.
Finally we cannot leave of side the renewable energies, of which Spain is one of the producing majors. Although it is certain that they are cleanest, also they are most expensive reason why if we want to bet by this routes to replace the nuclear power and the thermal one, we would have to accept an ascent of the tariff not of 20% but of more of the 100%.
It is not worth to say that we do not want that they raise the receipt of the light but that we do not want either that there are more nuclear power stations or than the present ones produce more. They are decisions that we must take, in a sense or in another one but it is not worth to say that the state solves it to me, because it does not have a magical baryta whereupon to do it. Nuclear power in Spain
1. That it is the Nuclear power
A nuclear power station is an used industrial installation for the generation of electrical energy from nuclear power, that is characterized by the use of nuclear fuels that by means of nuclear reactions provide heat. This heat is used by a conventional thermodynamic cycle to move an alternator and to produce electrical energy.
These power stations consist of one or several reactors, that are containers (called containers habitually) in whose interior mineral rods or other geometrical configurations are lodged with some fissile element (that is to say, that can be fisionar) or fertile (that can become fissile by nuclear reactions), usually Uranian, and in some fuels plutonium, also generated from the activation of uranium. In the radioactive fission process, a moderate reaction that is maintained and by means of the use of dependant auxiliary organizational elements of the type of used technology settles down.
The nuclear power plants are very complex constructions by the variety of used industrial technologies and by the high security with which it is equipped to them. The characteristics of the nuclear reaction cause that it can be dangerous if its control is lost and proliferates over a certain temperature to which they found the used materials on the reactor, as well as if escapes of injurious radiation by that or another cause take place.
The nuclear power is characterized to produce, besides a great amount of electrical energy, nuclear residues that there are to lodge in isolate and controlled deposits during long time. In return, it does not produce gas air pollution derived from the combustion that produces the greenhouse effect, nor need the use fossil fuels for his operation. Nevertheless, the indirect polluting emissions derived from their own construction, of the manufacture of the fuel and the later management of the radioactive waste (management to all the processes of treatment of the residues is denominated, including its storage) are not despicable.
In Spain the nuclear power stations generate 17% of necessary the electrical energy.
2. Nuclear power stations in Spain
 Santa Maria de Garoña. Located in Garoña (Burgos). Inaugurated in 1970. Type BWR. Power 466 MWe
Almaraz I. Located in Almaraz (Cáceres). Inaugurated in 1980. Type PWR. Power 980 MWe
Almaraz II. Located in Almaraz (Cáceres). Inaugurated in 1983. Type PWR. Power 984 MWe
Disgust I. Located in Disgust (Tarragona). Inaugurated in 1982. Type PWR. Power 1,032, 5 MWe
Disgust II. Located in Disgust (Tarragona). Inaugurated in 1985. Type PWR. Power 1,027, 2 MWe
Cofrentes. Located in Cofrentes (Valencia). Inaugurated in 1984. Type BWR. Power 1,097 MWe
Vandellós II. Located in Vandellós (Tarragona). Inaugurated in 1987. Type PWR. Power 1,087, 1 MWe
I beat. Located in I beat (Guadalajara). Inaugurated in 1987. Type PWR. Power 1,066 MWe
Projects paralyzed in the nuclear moratorium:
- Lemóniz I and II. province of Biscay.
- Valdecaballeros I and II. province of Badajoz.
- I beat II. province of Guadalajara.
- Escatrón I and II. province of Saragossa.
- Santillán. province of Cantabria.
- Regodola. province of Lugo.
- Sayago. province of Zamora.
Power stations dismantled or in dismantling process:
- Vandellós I. Located in Vandellós i l' Hospitalet of l' Infant (Tarragona). Inaugurated in 1972. Closed in 1989. Power 480 MW.
- Jose Goatherd. Located in Almonacid de Zorita (Guadalajara). Inaugurated in 1968 and stopped definitive one in 2006. Type PWR. Power 160 MW.
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