usatoday24
The question of uranium has returned to the forefront after the president of the Government affirm that “in Spain there is no uranium and therefore we will have to import it.” Although Spain has large uranium deposits, reality is always more complicated than the usual black or white policy.
The second European country with more uranium. Spain has between 25,000 and 30,000 tons of uranium, “the second most important reserves of the European Union,” According to the geologist Jesús Martínez Frías.
Both the ‘Red Book’ of the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) as the National Geographic Institute (IGN) indicate the existence of resources with the possibility of exploitation in Spanish territory, mainly in the province of Salamanca.
Why they stopped exploding. Spain had uranium mining, but The last mine closed in 2000 for the “exhaustion of economically exploitable mining resources”, according to the Ministry for Ecological Transition. The Spanish Nuclear Society (SNE) said that production costs had exceeded 30% market prices, which made its continuity unfeasible.
Two decades later, the Law 7/2021 of climate change and energy transition Truncó any new attempt To exploit the deposits: “Due to their prejudices, their cost will not be granted new exploration, research or concessions of exploitation of radioactive minerals, nor will new authorization requests be admitted.”
Environmental problems. The risk of radioactive water contamination is another elephant in the room. A study Posted by Environmental Pollution In 2018 he documented “much higher” uranium concentrations than background geochemical levels near old mines abandoned in Salamanca.
The levels in the soil ranged between 207.2 and 542.4 mg kg⁻¹, when the natural background levels are 29.8 mg kg⁻¹ for granite and 71.2 mg kg⁻¹ for slate. The study proposed environmental restoration measures, such as reforestation, in areas close to old farms.
They are not entirely unfeasible. The political landscape has changed with the European Union in search of energy sovereignty and resources. The economic landscape too. With The price of upward uraniumthe Berkeley Minera company has a revived interest in its Retortillo project.
The request for exploitation of this deposit was delivered before Law 7/2021 applied, but the Nuclear Safety Council also issued An unfavorable environmental report for “the low reliability and the high uncertainties of security analysis in geotechnical and hydrogeological aspects.”
Uranium you have to enrich it. Although there was a political change that leads to the reactivation of Retry, the uranium that is extracted from the earth (natural uranium) barely contains 0.7% of Uranium-235, the necessary physiognable isotope for most nuclear reactors.
It would be necessary to enrich uranium, a process that consists in increasing the concentration of uranium-235 to 3-5% levels for light water reactors, which are the most common. Spain does not have its own high -scale enriched uranium, or facilities in which to enrich uranium at the industrial level for use as fuel in nuclear centrals.
Can Spain enrich uranium? Spain had the capacity to produce uranium concentrates (in the form of yellow cakes or Yellowcakes), But obtaining enriched uranium is a subsequent, technologically more complex and expensive process, dominated by a few countries.
Today, 60% He leaves Russia and China. ENUSA (the national uranium company) already had difficulty replacing Russian enriched uranium after Commercial vetoes for the Ukraine War. Enriching it would be a major challenge.
A change of direction. In the new geopolitical context, the European Union is promoting the reactivation of mining to ensure a sovereign supply of key materials for energy transition and defense.
Spain is rich in Uranium, but also in resources such as copper, which is the second EU producer. Besides, It has lithiumcobalt, Coltán and possible lower land deposits. Seven of the 47 new Strategic Mining Projects promoted by the EU They will be developed in Spainalthough most face the rejection of environmental organizations for its environmental impact, such as the lithium mine in Cáceres.
The epicenter of the debate. Discussions on Spanish uranium are a broader reflex of tensions: the strategic autonomy of resources, the imperatives of the energy transition, environmental protection and social acceptance of mining activity.
In the end, the epicenter of the debate is the high cost of building and maintaining traditional nuclear plants in the face of renewable energy sources, of which Spain is world power. Only last year, Spain produced 148,999 GWh of renewable energy, 56.8% of Mix.
If the blackout was A notice that the electricity is not prepared To stabilize large renewable energy fluctuations, what touches is wondering what are the investments in storage, investors, interconnections and energy sources alternative to pollutants combined cycles of gas to avoid another blackout. Everything is said regarding the closure of nuclear plants or the extraction of uranium in Spain, but the solar industry will not go anywhere.
Image | Tecnatom
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