Atomkraft? Nein, danke! I must have been fourteen when, on the first day of school after the holidays, Laia, a classmate who had spent the summer in Germany, showed up in class with a t-shirt with this slogan printed next to a smiling sun. I remember being impressed and trying my best - unsuccessfully - to get my parents to get me a similar t-shirt.A few years earlier, the oil crisis had turned the world economy upside down, and many countries had begun to consider formulas to increase energy sovereignty and depend less on crude oil producers. The nuclear option seemed obvious almost everywhere, except in Bonn, then the capital of the Federal Republic of Germany. The anti-nuclear movement was so powerful in the country that one of the largest European demonstrations against this technology took place precisely in Bonn in 1979.The German anti-nuclear commitment predates the great contemporary climate discourse. And this legacy, which still weighs heavily, has pushed the country to difficult-to-explain decisions: closing nuclear power plants while keeping coal power plants open and while relying on gas as a central energy source in the balance of the German electrical and industrial system. Several calculations have quantified the price of this renunciation at around €700,000 million.The underlying idea is undeniable: the nuclear phase-out has not been free of charge, neither in economic nor in geopolitical terms. Germany, however, has made a monumental investment in renewables, and by 2025 these sources already covered about 56% of gross electricity consumption. But if it had not dismantled its nuclear park, the tensions that German industry has had to face due to its dependence on gas — and especially on Russian gas — would have been much more bearable.The German case can help us understand the Catalan situation. Today, around 57% of the electricity produced in Catalonia comes from the three operational nuclear power plants. It is also known that the country is lagging in renewables: we continue to be far below the weight they already have in other territories of the State, and a relevant part of renewable generation continues to be hydroelectric. The rest of the system still relies, in large part, on fossil technologies.
All this paints an uncomfortable paradox: we have a Catalan energy system relatively decarbonized thanks to nuclear power, but at the same time insufficiently renewable and very far from the slightest idea of energy sovereignty. In other words: nuclear power avoids emissions and gives us stability, but it does not save us from external dependence. The fuel comes from abroad and, moreover, part of its processing is done in Juzbado, in Salamanca, before supplying the Ascó or Vandellòs power plants.If the Catalan nuclear power plants close between 2030 and 2035, the country will be even more exposed to external dependence: whether on the fossil fuel needed to power combined cycle plants and other support technologies, or on electricity imported from other territories through major interconnections. It is hard to believe that, in just a few years, Catalonia will be able to deploy enough renewables and grid to replace without strain the loss of stable generation represented by Ascó and Vandellòs.The "nimby" —not in my backyard— phenomenon is particularly widespread and successful in our country. Nearly a hundred municipalities have suspended licenses for renewable projects, and Catalan projects take an average of three to six years to obtain all authorizations, compared to the European average of two years, or fifteen months in Aragon.Therefore, if we aspire to a more autonomous and sustainable Catalonia energetically, and with a truly relevant weight of renewables, we cannot make the mistake of prematurely renouncing nuclear power. What is needed is to truly accelerate solar and wind production, deploy storage infrastructures, and reduce the weight of the most polluting sources.But, in the meantime, it would be advisable to abandon certain ideological positions that border on superstition: because wanting a renewable future is one thing, and energetically harming oneself in the name of a dogma is quite another.Catalonia has become accustomed in recent years to not doing its homework when it should and then running to complain and victimize itself. This has happened with education, with housing, and with language. We should avoid it also happening with energy.Perhaps the time has come to print t-shirts with that same smiling sun from 50 years ago, but with the slogan reversed.
