In April 2022, the Portuguese company Altri chose Palas de Rei in Lugo to install a large plant initially destined for textile fibers (Lyocell). It was presented as “The most important project” From the Galician candidacy for the Next Generation funds and received early political support. However, according to They met The procedures and the real scope, collective and critical means began to refer to the initiative as a large cellulose panel, with much broader impacts than the “biophabic” label suggested.
Three years later, the star plan runs out of plug: the central government leaves it out of electrical planning until 2030, and the project enters the risk zone.
The decision that changes everything: without substation, there is no project
This week, the Ministry for Ecological Transition He has left out of its 2025-2030 planning both the substation and the access to the network that Altri claimed for its plant. According to El Paísthe Executive has prioritized “more viable” investments, with greater socioeconomic return and lower environmental impact, and avoids loading consumers with projects associated with projects With financial uncertainty. Greenfiber – the promoting society participated by ALTRI and Greenalia— maintains that it is of a “purely political” resolution and announces resources; The PP of Galicia speaks of “punishment” to the Lucense industry, while neighborhood and environmental platforms celebrate the pass, without lowering their guard.
He No of the central government. The Secretary of State for Energy claims that the substation and connection requested would only serve this project, whose execution is not yet guaranteed its financing, including request of 250 million euros in public aid (decarbonization belong). “We cannot assume a network investment that could be idle,” Sources from the Ministry transfer. For its part, According to El ConfidencialAltri warns: “Without connection there is no investment”, but progress that will exhaust “all resource mechanisms.”
The position of the Xunta. The Galician government argues that the project meets and that the favorable day (published in the DOG) support your environmental viability under conditions and surveillance program, waiting for other authorizations. The Xunta insists that the factory It would be “energetically neutral” and that its electrical exclusion “takes Lugo from the industrial map.” Therefore, as they detail in the confidentialhas translated into a political confrontation has resulted in hard crosses between Alfonso Rueda and the leader of the PSdeG, José Ramón Gómez Besteiro, who advanced the government’s decision.
The project from within. Different groups of neighborhood platforms such as Ulloa Viva, Brotherhoods of Marshamers of the Ría de Arousa and NGOs such as Adega and Greenpeace alert three key impacts:
- Water: Collection of 46 million liters daily of the Ulla and discharge of about 30 million liters/day – part at 27 ° C— in a river already tensioning for episodes of eutrophication, with potential condition to the Ría de Aruous.
- Raw material: estimated annual consumption of wood between 1.2 million m³ and even 2.4 million tons of eucalyptus. The divergence of figures underlines the controversy over eucalypticization and its effects on biodiversity and fire.
- Emissions and air: 75 -meter chimney and compound emissions acid rain precursorswith corrective measures subject to regulations.
The Water War reaches courts. While the electrical board clears, the judicial one is turned on. Adega and the Da Ría de Arousa (PDRA) platform, together with the CIG, have filed contentious-administrative resources to declare the water grant file, having exceeded the legal deadline of 18 months without resolution, According to the jump. To the offensive They have added seven brotherhoods of the Ulla-Arousa and the entire sector of the Galician mussel. The Xunta replicates that the complexity of the procedure justifies the delay and that there is no damage to third parties, an interpretation that the plaintiffs reject to generate “legal insecurity.”
And now what? Electrical exclusion opens a period of allegations and probable more intense prosecution of the file. Although the favorable day of the Xunta keeps the administrative channel, the “Electricity Class” and Water Concession alive places the project at its most fragile time. “Without water and without connection,” the detractors agree, “there is no macrocellulose.”
Galicia returns to live a pulse between industrial promise and territory protection. Between an investment that the Xunta considers a tractor and a social license that, for now, does not arrive. The Palas de Rei plant, a symbol of that conflict, remains in the air: aside, the lack of network and the judicial front; On the other, the political effort to keep it afloat. The outcome is no longer settled only in offices: also on the banks of the Ulla and in the Ría de Arousa – and in court.
Image | Greenpeace
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