Democracy in Spain Mainly Falls Flat …

Nuclear Waste? YES PLEASE!

How many mad town councilors does it take to risk contaminating a region with nuke waste?

Small Spanish town of Asco in the northeastern Catalonia region, needed only a handful—seven.

Despite strong opposition from the regional government and repeated street protests by the town residents, Asco town council voted by seven votes to two to bid for a nuclear waste dump in the region.

The dump would reportedly cost about a $1 billion to erect and creates 300 jobs for less than five years.

Apparently, those stats were good enough for the the town mayor, Rafael Vidal.

“We have the opportunity to build an Asco…which will spur controversy but doubtless bring important revenues to the local economy,” Mayor said in comments broadcast on a TV channel, Reuters reported.

The president of the Catalan regional government, Jose Montilla, has already declared his objections to building a nuclear dump in Catalonia, though the region has 3 of Spain’s eight nuclear power plants.

“Catalan power stations produce 40 percent of all of Spain’s power. We’ve done our bit,” he said.

“Spent nuclear fuel in Spain is currently stored on site in power stations, but the government predicts they will begin to fill up in 2013. The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, has urged Spain to begin work on a purpose-built site.” Reuters reported.

Spain’s socialist govt under its Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero has promised to freeze building nuclear power plants, but will allow the existing outlets  to operate for at least 10 more years.

Related Links:

• Indian Power Workers Drink Radioactive Water
• Three Mile Island Cats Have 9 Lives, Too?

Deadly Storms Strike Spain and France

High winds and torrential rains pummel northern Spain and south-western France

1. Three children were killed when the roof of a sports hall collapsed in the northern Spanish town of Sant Boi de Llobregat, near Barcelona, amid winds of up to 170km/h,  officials said. At least two other adults were also killed in Spain in separate storm-related incidents.

2. “Part of the building collapsed, there were between 20 and 30 youngsters inside. We know there are some dead and 16 injured,” a local government spokeswoman told AFP news agency.

A man looks at a tree split by a storm in Toulouse, France. Photograph: Pascal Pavani/AFP/Getty Images. Image may be subject to copyright.

3. “An official with the Barcelona region’s Interior Ministry said ‘many children’ were trapped in the debris at the sports center, without offering specific figures. She spoke on condition of anonymity under agency rules.” AP said.

4. A woman was killed when a wall collapsed on her in Barcelona, while a traffic officer was killed by a falling tree in Burela, Galicia.

5. More than a million homes in France are without electricity, while roads have been blocked, train services halted and airports closed, as huge waves battered the French and Spanish coastline, BBC quoted authorities as saying.

6. “The storms are expected to spread eastwards on Saturday bringing the risk of further heavy rain, strong winds and disruption, BBC weather experts said.”

7. “The number of clients who are cut off from the grid is rising from minute to minute as the storm moves eastwards,” a spokesperson for the electricity grid operator, ERDF, told local media.

8. The storm is reportedly the most powerful to hit south-western France  since December 1999, when about 90 people were killed and up to four million homes left without electricity.

Related News Link

• Fatal storms hit Spain and France

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Parched Plain of Spain

The Rain in Spain Falls Mainly . . . Er, Nowhere!

The Spanish government has acted to lessen the drought impact for the second time this year, the driest winter in memory. Water has been diverted to ensure supplies to 2.5 million people in the parched southeastern regions.

To reduce its heavy dependence on on imported grain, Spain needs much water to irrigate crops, and to increase hydroelectric output. Water restrictions have been in force since 2003 in some regions of the country.

Sequia en España – Drought in Spain– Photo by Empordako Aharia
[Creative Commons License – Some rights reserved]

Water reservoirs for consumption and agricultural use are only 44.1 percent full (down from 51.5 percent a year ago), and reservoirs allocated to Spain’s power stations are at 54.5 percent of capacity (down from 77.1 percent last year). Hydroelectric turbines provided only about five percent of Spain’s total demand in the last two months, down from 12 percent in wet years. News Report

In 2006, the drought-stricken Spain and France had their lowest corn production in 50 years, while in some parts of Australia there was no wheat harvest, and in the United States corn production fell 6 percent.