In May 1974, the actor Paco Rabal wrote a letter to Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente: "I am sending you some petition sheets for a moratorium on Nuclear Power Plants, which should be addressed to the Presidency of the Government (...). We await your signature on these two petition sheets and, when you can, and if your Adena colleagues agree, to challenge it on your own. (...) And finally, dear fighter, your didactic, human, and popular work can once again be very useful to us."
However, the response from Spain's most important scientific communicator in history was not as expected: "I have carefully studied the data you kindly sent me, and my position cannot be as drastic as to formally oppose all types of nuclear energy-generating facilities."
Almost 40 years after the Chernobyl disaster and 14 years after Fukushima, nuclear energy is back in vogue, and this time not due to an accident. Following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, climate activist Greta Thunberg stated in an interview that it would be "a mistake" for Germany to shut down its nuclear power plants, as Spain has planned, if that meant the country would have to burn more coal. When the show's host insisted on whether she believed they should be closed as soon as the current energy crisis passed, Thunberg replied, "It depends. We don't know what will happen after this."
But what happened almost immediately was a split in the Swedish green icon's circle. Ia Aanstoot, another Swedish girl who at the age of 13 participated in the Friday school strikes promoted by Thunberg, launched her own campaign. She wanted Greenpeace to abandon its "outdated and unscientific" campaign against nuclear energy in the EU.
Aanstoot started with a petition, Dear Greenpeace: "Greenpeace is stuck in the past, fighting against clean, carbon-free nuclear energy while the world is literally burning. We need to use all available tools to address climate change, and nuclear energy is one of them. I'm tired of having to fight with my environmentalist colleagues when we should be fighting together against fossil fuels."
She was followed by young activists from France, Finland, the Netherlands, and Poland, like the 22-year-old biologist Julia Galosh: "I protested in horror against Greenpeace when they campaigned to stop Germany's nuclear reactors. Now they want to prevent my home country from transitioning from coal to nuclear energy. Enough is enough."
James Hansen, American physicist, climatologist, professor at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University, and former director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has become the most pro-nuclear climate scientist: "Opposition to nuclear energy is truly insane. All these fears of radiation, waste, accidents, lack scientific basis. This aversion is almost religious and irrational."
But he is not alone. Scientists from all EU countries are donning the mantle of climate activists and founding new NGOs from which they intend to "combat misinformation with scientific data." They want to demonstrate that the planet's salvation depends, in addition to renewables, on the energy source that has caused at least two of the most serious environmental disasters in human history. "For us, the green color is out of fashion. Sustainability lies in blue energy," points out one of these new NGOs, the Italian L'Avvocato dell'Atomo.
"We realized that the problem was not technological... it was Chernobyl and The Simpsons," says nuclear engineer Guillem Sanchís, who two years ago founded the Spanish version of these movements, Econuclear, which in January managed to gather 10,000 people in Almaraz to ask the Spanish government not to close the plant.
"The Simpsons? Of course, with those chimneys emitting smoke, which is actually water vapor, or those yellow barrels emitting a reflective green liquid, or those three-eyed fish... Well, all that doesn't exist, except for the fish that Ecologistas en Acción invented."
In 2002, Ecologistas en Acción announced the appearance of a fish with serious genetic alterations near the Garoña nuclear power plant (Burgos), managing to involve the magazine Science, until it finally admitted that it had deliberately lied. "We decided that it would be a good publicity stunt to spread this information and then refute it a few days later," they said, and rightly so, because Garoña ceased its activity in July 2013.
"It is an energy that occupies very little territory, clean, emission-free, and with all the green labels you want to put on it," points out Guillem Sanchís
-In a year, living next to a nuclear power plant gives you less radiation dose than eating a banana (the fruit is slightly radioactive due to potassium-40). Furthermore, the plants are becoming increasingly safe. But no one talks about the radiation from X-rays or all the radiation you receive when you take a plane due to cosmic radiation. Extremadura has a lot of radioactivity due to the region's geology. Radioactive does not mean dangerous.
-That's a solved problem. It's a matter of time, distance, and shielding. It's more of a social and political problem. All the spent fuel from Spanish nuclear plants throughout their history fits into a 13.5-meter cube, which could be stored in an area equivalent to a football field.
-And the nuclear cemeteries?
-Of course, using the word 'cemetery' already makes it sound bad. They are called deep geological repositories, like the one Finland is building. It consists of 48 kilometers of tunnels excavated in a granite bedrock. It does not pose a cost for future generations, zero maintenance, and zero risk. But in Spain, there are none. Everything is stored in the ATI (Individualized Temporary Storage), which are concrete containers within the facilities themselves, not the barrels from The Simpsons. But, of course, that is more expensive because, for example, in Spain, you need to have seven.
Contrary to what the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, said last week in the Congress of Deputies, Spain does have uranium. According to data from the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) and the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain (IGME), Spain is estimated to have between 30,000 and 50,000 tons. The main deposit is the Retortillo-Santidad, in the province of Salamanca. The Australian company Berkeley Energía tried to extract it, but the Spanish government prevented it citing environmental reasons.
"Living next to a nuclear power plant for a year gives you less radiation dose than eating a banana"
Currently, Spain's energy dependence on the seven reactors of its five nuclear power plants is around 20%. In 2019, the Minister of the Environment, Teresa Ribera, announced the plan to close the five nuclear power plants in Spain, which will begin to close gradually in 2027. "They cannot be shut down suddenly because it is a complex industry, and restarting also costs a lot, so 2025 is the deadline to save them, and time is running out," says Sanchís.
Last month, China approved the construction of 10 new nuclear reactors, adding to the 30 under construction, representing almost half of all nuclear projects worldwide. After the Fukushima disaster, Japan considered a gradual phase-out of all its nuclear power plants, but it seems that once the scare passed, they have backtracked.
Canada and the United States have committed to tripling global nuclear capacity by 2050, while the United Kingdom is undergoing an ambitious expansion of its nuclear capacity, aiming to meet 25% of electricity demand with this energy by 2050. There, the English doctor, meteorologist, writer, inventor, atmospheric and environmental chemist, famous for the Gaia hypothesis, who envisions Earth as a self-regulating system, James Lovelock, wrote before his death in 2022: "The area around the failed Chernobyl nuclear power plant was evacuated because its high radiation intensity made it unsafe for people. But this radioactive land is now rich in wildlife, much more so than the neighboring populated areas. We call nuclear waste the ashes of nuclear energy and are concerned about their safe disposal. I wonder if, instead, we should use them as incorruptible guardians of Earth's beautiful places. Who would dare to cut down a forest that harbored nuclear ashes?".
However, in the European Union, France, with 56 reactors providing between 70-75% of its energy, and eight more on the way, ended up becoming a nuclear island in the heart of the continent. Especially since the German government of Angela Merkel, after the Fukushima accident, had the idea to shut down all its nuclear reactors to increase its dependence on Russian gas. Belgium and Switzerland followed suit but, at the last moment, retracted. Finland completed Europe's most powerful reactor in 2023. Sweden, after decades of advocating for its gradual phase-out, has just presented a plan to build at least 10 new reactors by 2045. After Fukushima, Italy simply voted not to do more, but now President Giorgia Meloni is reintroducing them into her agenda.
The Turin-born Luca Romano was studying physics at the University when the Fukushima accident happened. "It was the first time I discovered how misinformed people were on the subject, but I didn't get interested again until after the Paris Agreement in 2015 when I started to genuinely worry about global warming and how to stop it."
As he didn't have time, he didn't do anything until 2020 when he found himself locked in his house due to the pandemic and founded the NGO L'Avvocato dell'Atomo. "The atom has been subjected to a media trial for decades. And it's not a fair process, that's why we decided to defend it," he says on his website.
They define themselves as: "A group of physicists, engineers, and enthusiasts tired of misinformation about nuclear energy who decided to combat it with scientific outreach. We are convinced that an energy transition cannot occur without close collaboration between nuclear energy and renewables: nuclear as the base load and renewables for peak demand. If you have always associated nuclear energy with the green color of waste, you watch too much The Simpsons!".
Curious individuals are invited to educate themselves with a click: "It is the energy source that produces the least CO2. Don't believe it? Click for more information." "It is the most dense: with few raw materials, it generates a lot of energy! Don't believe it? Click for more information." "It is as safe as renewable energies, and animals love the areas around power plants. Don't believe it? Click for more information." "It is the most suitable to cover the base load, day and night, 365 days a year. Don't believe it? Click for more information."
-Will Meloni click?
-So far, the Government has not taken the issue very seriously: they are too afraid of losing voters, but surveys clearly indicate a shift, with young people overwhelmingly in favor of nuclear energy (65% of young Italians between 18 and 34 years old are in favor, compared to 58% of those over 55 who are against, according to the 2023 survey by the Italian Observer SWG).
In 1975, 45% of Spaniards had a neutral stance on nuclear energy. After Chernobyl, 63% turned against it. A study by the Rovira i Virgili University (URV) published in June 2024 stated that 48.3% of Spaniards support the closure of nuclear power plants. But a survey from April of the same year conducted by Cluster 17 and beBartlet indicated that 58% were in favor of keeping them. Last April, the Sigma Dos Panel for EL MUNDO revealed that 67.8% of Spaniards would not support the closure of nuclear plants if it implies a higher cost on the electricity bill.
-What do you think Spain will do?-we asked Romano.
-It will change course. It won't want to find itself in the same situation as Belgium, where they closed two reactors and were about to close three more when they realized that both emissions and electricity prices were increasing. They saved the last two, but most of the damage was done. Spain still has time.
-So, are members of traditional NGOs ignorant?
-It's not that they are ignorant, they are simply partisan, and that matters much more than their education on nuclear energy. One of their biggest problems is the cost of changing your stance after fighting your whole life for something. Fear arises from the fear of nuclear weapons, which is also the origin of Greenpeace. Additionally, they are made up of older individuals. Young people have a more open mind. It was a mistake not to have done public communication earlier. That has been very poorly done.
Francisco del Pozo Campos, head of the campaign against fossil fuels at Greenpeace, describes the presence of these new pro-nuclear environmental movements in Europe as "token." "It is true that the debate has resurfaced, but you cannot be an environmentalist and pro-nuclear, much less pacifist," Del Pozo points out. "It's not the holy grail, they don't see the negative side, they are not aware of the risks, the waste, and the costs. It doesn't coexist well with renewables because it's not flexible, and it was demonstrated during the blackout in Spain that it neither helped prevent it nor solve it. We don't need to mention Chernobyl to show that it's not worth it. And now there's a cultural war, where if you're left-wing, you're anti-nuclear, and since the right is pro, I, being right-wing, become pro. I'm concerned about the pro-nuclear stance of ERC, which has always been anti-nuclear, and now, after the blackout, is in favor of extending the lifespan of the plants."
Green Taxonomy
The most important pro-nuclear NGO in Europe is WePlanet, founded in 2021 in a low-cost hotel basement in Antwerp, Belgium, by a small group of scientists and environmentalists from around the world. "We were united by the conviction that, to save the planet, humanity must move forward, not backward. So we decided to create a new and radical environmental movement based on data, focused on progress, urgency, and optimism, that loves and embraces science instead of fearing and rejecting it," says their Global Development Chief, Finnish biologist and environmentalist Tea Törmänen.
Their main victory was the inclusion of nuclear energy in the EU's green taxonomy in January 2023. A "green" label that meant providing financial incentives for European countries and companies to invest in nuclear energy. With a caveat: "To be classified as sustainable, nuclear power plants must have received their construction permit before 2045 and have a clear and detailed plan on how their waste will be disposed of."
The proposal was narrowly avoided: 278 MEPs against nuclear, 328 in favor, and 33 abstained. However, a veto required an absolute majority of 353. "Labeling nuclear energy as a sustainable investment is an environmental, financial, and social irresponsibility. The greenwashing of these harmful energies hinders and slows down the energy transition and undermines the EU's climate goals," stated Ariadna Rodrigo, head of the sustainable finance campaign at Greenpeace in the EU, who has taken the fight to the courts, where Greta Thumberg's former colleague, Ia Aanstoot, has also intervened, but in the opposite direction.
Tea Törmänen says she never felt comfortable in traditional NGOs. "For a long time, I couldn't join the Finnish Green Party because I've never been against nuclear energy. I've always believed that going back in time won't save us, and now, as a mother, I don't want that for my children." By 2019, the Finnish Green Party abandoned its anti-nuclear stance to become what Tea calls "the most progressive Green Party in the world," of which she is a proud member. "Now we have extended the lifespan of our oldest nuclear plants and they are licensed to operate until 2050, and I hope they last even longer. It is one of the most cost-effective climate actions we can develop," Tea points out.
"And what do you think about Spain?"
"That the Government is making a dangerous mistake. If it continues, it will send a worrying message: that ideology weighs more than science, even as the planet heats up."
In April, with their "Turn off Putin" campaign, WePlanet projected messages onto the cooling towers of the Grohnde nuclear power plant (Germany), denouncing that it is the fossil fuels imported from Russia that should be reduced, not nuclear energy. Alongside them was Nuklearia, the German version of the pro-nuclear NGO. Its vice president is math professor Britta Augustin: "Growing up in the GDR, I was raised with a pro-nuclear mindset."
Augustin is convinced that with the change of government in Germany, "everything can change, because the Greens have been marginalized." The mathematician believes that the Green Party's anti-nuclear stance "is deeply rooted in a generational trauma: many were scared as children by the Chernobyl disaster, and no one helped them process or reevaluate that fear. There is a great need for education on nuclear energy but, unfortunately, very few are addressing it. Most people still believe in myths due to many years of misinformation."
Augustin believes that "the blackout in Spain was a wake-up call for many, not just for Spain." And even across the pond, Heather Hoff, a worker at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in central California, says she followed the news minute by minute: "I found out right away because my news algorithm must know that I pay attention to energy issues." And within a few days, she began to draw her own conclusions: "I don't like that utility companies and government entities try to cover up the truth."
Heather Hoff is the founder of Mothers for Nuclear, an NGO founded on Earth Day 2016, in defense of nuclear energy. Its logo is a mother cradling her baby, surrounded by electron rings. Hoff admits that she initially disliked nuclear energy. "Our fears were largely misdirected." Or as journalist and writer Elizabeth Kolbert, winner of the BBVA Foundation Biophilia Environmental Communication Award, points out in a recent article published in The New Yorker: "The problem is not that nuclear power plants are prone to catastrophic meltdowns, but that people are prone to think catastrophically."