No to Nuclear Power in Spain: The Arguments Examined

Distrust of nuclear energy in Spain is not based on a single accident, but on a series of management and maintenance failures that, according to some, would make it impossible to control. The data on safety and costs, however, is more nuanced.

## The distrust does not stem from a single incident

The perception that Spain cannot manage nuclear power plants is fed by specific episodes. The Iberian Peninsula power outage of **April 28, 2025** left millions of people without electricity and called into question the coordination of the system. Added to this are the rail accidents in **Urda**, with dozens of deaths, which have eroded confidence in the country's technical capacity. For those who hold this view, it is not a problem of technology, but of who operates it.

## The argument of cronyism and quotas

The core of the skepticism points to the political management of infrastructure. The argument is that leadership positions are filled with political appointees, that technicians are placed by quotas, and that when losses appear, safety budgets are cut. It is a suspicion, not a proven fact. In **Chernobyl**, in **1986**, the accident was not caused by an ignorant operator, but by a system that prioritized the test over safety and crushed the technicians who warned of the risk. The lesson is not that nuclear energy is ungovernable, but that governance matters.

## The cost of not having nuclear power

Without nuclear power plants, Spain depends more on gas and imports. The price of electricity in the wholesale market is set by the most expensive technologies entering at each hour, and gas usually sets the ceiling. Those who pay the bill notice it. The discussion about safety is not only technical: it is also a discussion about who bears the cost of uncertainty.

## What the data says versus antiestéticar

Nuclear energy generates the fewest deaths per unit of electricity, according to reports from **Our World in Data**. Serious accidents are rare and, when they occur, they are due to design or management failures, not to the nature of the atom. The conclusion that Spain cannot have nuclear power plants is an opinion, not a fact. Safety depends on investment and independent oversight, not on the surname of the minister of the day.