Mira Amaral: “I recommend that the Spanish have sense and keep the nuclear power plants operating”

Former Minister of Industry and Energy Luís Mira Amaral spoke out this Thursday against what he says is a “climate fundamentalism” of exclusive focus on renewable sources for electricity production, coming out in defense of nuclear energy. “I recommend that anyone who has nuclear power plants maintain them, I recommend that the Spanish have sense and maintain them”, stated Mira Amaral at a conference promoted by AIP – Associação Industrial Portuguesa.

“We must be aware that we already have an electrical system on an Iberian scale with nuclear energy”, recalled Mira Amaral, alluding to the reactors already operating in Spain (which has a plan for the phased deactivation of the reactors, between 2027 and 2035).

The use of small nuclear reactors (SMR), a technology still under development, should not be discarded by Portugal, Mira Amaral also said, without going into great detail, nor exploring the issue of the costs of this solution and how investment in these reactors would be operationalized.

“I don’t believe in a grid with only intermittent hydro and wind energy. We need a thermal base”, argued Luís Mira Amaral at the AIP conference in Lisbon.

In his intervention, the former ruler warned that “the German industrial model is slipping”, after Berlin decided to abandon nuclear energy and Russia’s war with Ukraine caused problems in gas supplies. “They were stuck with Russian gas”, noted Mira Amaral, alluding to the “German energy disaster”.

At the same conference, Mira Amaral highlighted that “the advantage of nuclear in terms of energy density is clear”, in addition to that this source “appears to be very competitive in terms of CO2 emissions”.

The former Minister of Industry and Energy condemned the “powerful lobby” of renewable sources, argued that battery storage does not solve the challenge of seasonal energy transfer and regretted that the discussion on nuclear energy no longer has media space. “There is no nuclear lobby, because there is no nuclear investment in Portugal, and if there is no money, there is no lobby”, he commented.

“The intermittent renewables lobby controls the regime’s media”, accused Mira Amaral (who is a columnist for Express), also criticizing the Government’s absence from a previous conference on nuclear energy held last year in Viseu.