The government is weighing a plan to keep spent nuclear fuel at Cofrentes Nuclear Power Plant until 2088, as Spain faces challenges in building a central temporary facility that would receive waste from all plants. In unveiling the country’s denuclearization roadmap last week, the Director questioned whether each of the seven Spanish reactors should have its own decentralized temporary storage on site until a final solution is activated. The plan notes that Cofrentes already holds a significant amount of used uranium and will generate more low, medium, and high-level radioactive waste in the coming years as operations continue toward the end of the plant era.
Spain initially pursued reprocessing of waste from the earliest reactors at industry partners in France and the United Kingdom. In 1982, that practice was halted, and the policy shifted to each plant storing spent fuel in its own pools. The result was a transition away from returning reprocessed waste to Spain, with ongoing cautions about whether any reprocessing contracts would require shipments back home. Today, waste produced by the Vandellós plant and any material reprocessed abroad must ultimately return to Spain under current agreements.
The Cofrentes facility, which began operation in 1985, kept all spent uranium in two pools on site. By last year those pools were nearly full, prompting the construction of a dry storage facility to free up space so the plant could continue operating.
The planned solution for spent fuel was to use a Central Temporary Depot at Villar de las Cañas in Cuenca, but the government rejected this site previously due to local opposition to housing nuclear waste. In response, officials are weighing two paths: establishing a different central depot elsewhere, or implementing seven decentralized temporary depots at each Spanish plant.
waste plan
The 7th General Plan for Radioactive Waste envisions Cofrentes, Almaraz, Ascó, Santa María de Garoña, José Cabrera, Trillo, and Vandellós II having on-site storage capacity to hold waste generated during both operation and dismantling. The plan also supports expanding Cofrentes’ dry storage to save time while a final solution is pursued.
The shutdown timeline indicates Cofrentes will cease operations in November 2030, with dismantling beginning in 2033 and completing by 2043.