Say goodbye to coal

ENVIRONMENTALISTS condemned suggestions that the Carboneras power station should remain open.

Spain’s National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) recently asked the central government’s Environment Ministry to reconsider its decision to close the plant, attributing this to “renewables fever.”

They found this “worrying,” Greenpeace and Ecologistas en Accion maintained. The CNMC should be asking the government to amend energy plans and guarantee an end to using coal as well as phasing out gas, they said.

It was “absolutely inadmissible” that in the midst of debating economic recovery and the energy transition, the CNMC should want to delay the closure of coal-fired power stations, Greenpeace and Ecologistas complained to the Spanish media.

“Maintaining a coal plant to stabilise the grid is like killing flies with cannons because there are solutions that are much more sustainable and economical,” claimed Jose Luis Garcia, Greenpeace’s Energy coordinator.

“For three decades the Carboneras installation has been Andalucia’s biggest contributor to climate change and it is an obsolete and depleted model,” Garcia added.

“The Institute for a Fair Transition should not permit the survival of this manufacturer of carbon dioxide and aggressions to health and the environment,” declared Daniel Lopez Marijuan, responsible for Ecologistas en Accion’s Energy, Waste and Climate Change division,

“Endesa has to face up to its environmental responsibilities,” he insisted.

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