7,000 march in Almaraz, Spain, against nuclear plant closure

How many people does it take to stop the closure of a nuclear power plant? In Almaraz, a town in the province of Cáceres, some 7,000 people walked on Saturday 18 January from the town hall square to the gates of the plant. They came to ask that it not be switched off. Among those attending were politicians from different parties, a measure of the local consensus: this is not about party labels, it is about staying put or having to leave. And the message is the same as in so many industrial regions of the country: once the activity is gone, it never comes back.

What Extremadura stands to lose with the closure of the Almaraz nuclear plant

The plant in Extremadura is scheduled for closure by the central Spanish government, and the region has organised itself against that decision. The 18 January protest was not a party event: it brought together officials from different parties under the same slogan, we will not give up, because we do not want to become emigrants again. The underlying argument is economic rather than ideological. A nuclear plant is not just electricity; it is stable jobs, local income and a settled population in a region that already knows what it means to be emptied out.

The mining town that went from 50 bars to 15

The warning is not new. Those who lived through the closure of coal mining and the thermal power plants describe the script without embellishment: a mining town that once had 50 bars and restaurants now gets by with 15, and some barely. That dismantling was given a friendly label, just transition, and the antiestéticar is that the nuclear plant will trinc the same path. First coal, then the thermal plants and now the nuclear plant: that is the sequence attributed to the central government.

Sánchez promises Extremadura it will be an "industrial locomotive"

The standoff has a political face. On 19 January 2025, Pedro Sánchez closed the XV Congress of the PSOE de Extremadura (the regional branch of Spain's Socialist Party) in Plasencia, which confirmed Miguel Ángel Gallardo as regional secretary. There he claimed that if the region does not take steps backwards it will be "the industrial locomotive of all Spain". The remark came one day after the Almaraz march and did nothing to calm tempers: promising industry while closing the region's largest energy facility has its irony. Also part of this context is Teresa Ribera, who at the time of writing held a vice-presidency at the European Commission.

Will there be power cuts if Almaraz shuts down?

Here opinions diverge. One side warns that the closure jeopardises the electricity supply of a large part of the country; the other considers it a manageable transition. It is pointed out that nuclear energy is considered green in France but not in Spain, and less solid explanations circulate too, such as blaming future blackouts on climate change or a cyberattack, hypotheses that have no support whatsoever. What there is, for now, is a plant in operation and 7,000 people ready to defend it.

Given all this, the sensible thing would be to expect the promised industry to arrive before the closure. Nobody has yet explained the order.