Thousands march to protest shutdown of Spain's largest nuclear plant
21 January 2025
What happens when governments shut down nuclear power plants? In Spain it's usually protests. Welcome to Extremadura, one of the country's most rural regions, where 7,000 people took to the streets on Sunday to challenge the shutdown of the Almaraz nuclear plant, the largest in the country.
Almaraz's two pressurized water reactors (PWR) generate 7% of Spain's energy and are directly responsible for employing more than 3,000 people in Extremadura, a region where industry is minimal and job opportunities are scarce.
The government refers to Almaraz's decommissioning as the first in a series of efforts to end nuclear by 2035. They say energy providers are no longer willing to incur the plant's maintenance costs and explain that constructing a battery factory will keep jobs in the area. But locals are not buying into it.
 | Carlos Caselles Unlike in Germany, where decommissioning efforts often raised concerns about energy security and the climate crisis, nuclear worries in Spain center mostly around depopulation. All five of our active nuclear plants are located in rural towns of less than 2,000 inhabitants, who unanimously see their removal as an existential threat. |
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