The ‘blackout’ changes Spaniards: two-thirds now support the use of nuclear energy

28 comments

1. >*The* ***major power outage on April 28*** *has had an effect on Spanish public opinion. One of the first consequences has been a* ***change in mentality*** *detected by leading think tanks, such as the Elcano Royal Institute, whose latest barometer survey (wave 45) shows that* ***two-thirds of respondents (66%) believe that the country’s nuclear power plants should continue to operate****.*

   >*The question “There are several nuclear power plants in Spain. Do you think these plants should continue to operate in the future or should they be shut down?” has an answer that leaves no doubt about the growing trend among Spaniards, as 66% believe that nuclear power plants should continue to operate, while 28% disagree and only 5% say they do not know how to answer. This represents a very* ***significant change from the 43% who in 2023 agreed with the statement “We should extend the life of nuclear power plants as much as possible.”***

2. Yeah, nuclear energy would be so much easier to turn off and on again…..

3. Misinformation has consequences.

4. https://reneweconomy.com.au/worlds-most-isolated-grid-wants-big-batteries-to-last-longer-to-fill-gaps-after-last-coal-shuts-down/

   Just gonna leave this here. Australia faced many blackouts, and it was technology part of a renewable grid which brought that to a stop.

5. What caused the blackouts? A lack of energy being produced?

6. TheObjetive is well known in Spain for its lack of independence. It is a far right tabloid.

7. R/europe wants to have sex with a npp I guess

8. Bunch of angry Germans incoming.

   Stop being so delulu.
   Nuclear is the way to go, just because you fell for the anti-nuclear propaganda, shouldn’t mean that others should follow your bad example.

   Just take the L and support others in not making the same mistake you guys did.

9. Why are uneducated people spreading lies that nuclear is unsafe?

10. Good

11. Thread about spanish perspectives on nuclear power? Better comment some snark about the germans and their switched off plants.

    Seriously, are these just old bots somebody forgot to switch off?

    Anyway, good on the Spaniards. Varied mix of power can’t hurt. And while it won’t compete with renewables in price, scale or ease of use – baseload could still be worth it.

12. This newspaper is rubbish. The chances that what comes out of it is information is practically zero.

13. By all means, keep existing low carbon power online where possible. I’m not against nuclear in principle (though I don’t think it’s a good solution for augmenting renewables), but for new construction (which I’m aware is not what’s discussed here) you should be leaving the planning to actual experts and not the general public. Nuclear also has its own downsides (can’t ramp up or down quickly, takes long to build, centralizes power generation more, makes you dependent on where you get the fissiles from, you need to store the waste indefinitely, needs a lot of water for cooling…), just different ones than wind and solar. They don’t complement each other super well. It’s a complex problem that takes actual expertise to figure out one way or the other.

14. Since the day after the blackout, the Nuclear lobby has been working really hard to blame the “political overreliance” on renewables of the blackout, and to convince people that with more nuclear it would have been impossible. The message has been basically that is impossible to create a stable grid if we don’t cut down on renewable energy. Its been all over the news and social media.

    This specific poll probably responds to a current conflict between some nuclear operators and the government about the closing date of some specific reactors. The government allows the extension only in the case there is no public cost, and the operators demand a general electricity tax reduction (or the reactors would operate at a los). This is most likely an attempt to pressure the government.

15. But the blackout was not for lack of renewable power, but because there was some net frequency mismatch which turned everything off. The same can happen with nuclear power plants.

16. Spain already has multiple nuclear power plants but still had a blackout, so how is this the solution?

    Anyway, enjoy paying 40bn for a plant that will open in 20 years

17. Not me!

18. Disclaimer: TheObjective is a far right propagandistic media.

19. Friendly reminder that “The Objective” is not as objective as its name suggests.

20. This is way too simplistic for something so complex as the energy mix of a country with millions daily energy consumers.

    Let’s start with the fact that blackouts are rare in Europe, and that there is still an ongoing investigation on the reasons for the recent one. Apparently, some power plants were inexplicably shut down or badly connected to the grid, and it was not just renewables but coal and gas plants implicated too, because in most cases it’s the same big energy operator that has a diverse portfolio of energy sources like Endesa.

    Then on the matter at hand, of course anyone should be ok with maintaining a power plant until its natural end of life (40-60 y) but to maintain them after that time? It’s not the same thing we are taking about. It’s like keeping food that is expired. You can eat it but you may be regretting it the next day 😜

    Older nuclear power plants need to be constantly monitored and they experience anomalies at higher rates than normal power plants, that alone increases operability costs, which in turn impacts people’s energy bill. Sometimes you even have to almost switch off power plants for security reasons. A quick search on google will be enough to see all those French and Belgian old power plants that need to lower their energy output for a time before it is safe again to go back at normal production rates.

    New nuclear power plants take a lot of time to be built and require massive investments and expertise. Often the government needs to pull in because the infrastructure is so sensible, it implies a 0 risks policy. So that is already a liability. Assuming every stakeholder is ready and the project is green lighted, if you plan to build new nuclear reactors, you can expect them to be ready in 10 years or so; that is a lot of time for planning ahead because we don’t know for certain what is the energy consumption trends of peoples and industry in a decade or so.

    Certainly if you look at it from an environmental POV, solar power or wind power bare costs in terms of embedded carbon and recyclability, plus have the problem of intermittency, and for sure they can be faulty when something like a blackout occurs. Then again Spain has not seen a blackout in decades, last big one in Europe was in Italy many years ago. But renewable energy can be installed mostly anywhere where you have sunlight, wind or tidal power, or geothermal or so many things. Its investment cycle is much much shorter so it increases predictability, banks give very low loans for installing solar panels for example. It is not surprising to see Spanish villages setting solar panels with haste. Solar power has the fastest growing renewable energy in Europe for a reason.

    Even better, if your house is properly equipped, someone with solar panels would not suffer from a blackout for at least a day. If people knew that, perhaps they would think it twice instead of sugar coating nuclear power like if it was the answer to all our (energy) problems.

21. How safe is European infrastructure against sabotage I wonder. my guess is not very.

    Imagine your local hospital out of electricity for 10+ hours. what the A+E would look like,

22. For anyone that doesn’t know that shit, Fox News is a serious news media in comparison with The Objective.

23. Another french conspiracy against the great nation of Spain

24. Yes, let‘s have one of the most expensive forms of energy generation which supports monopolistic power companies, instead of decentralized dirt cheap solar… in a country which has 3000 hours of sunlight a year.

    Said nobody ever.

25. Spain is one of those countries where solar with energy storage just makes sense.

26. Who the hell wouldn’t want nuclear? Only nimbys and weirdos afraid of meltdowns that simply won’t happen

27. Nuclear has been the better product since it was invented. The only downside is all the other industries suffering because nuclear is just so much better in every possible way

28. I’m not against nuclear, but I find ridiculous the idea that more nuclear power would have prevented the Spanish blackout.

    Prior the blackout we had several nuclear reactors **inactive for weeks** because they weren’t profitable with solar dropping the energy price to the floor.

    If we had more nuclear reactors before the blackout, like some nuclear fans wished, that would only mean **more reactors would be inactive** and the blackout would still happen.

    A hard truth is that the more foltovoltaics (and other renewals) cheapens and spread, nuclear becomes more niche and less active.

    Personal opinion: the blackout evidences we have to increase resistance and resilience of the Spanish grid and adds more inertia generators. We should also find out the specific origin of the voltage spike.

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