Spain
In 1984, Spain established ENRESA as a state-owned company responsible for managing radioactive waste and decommissioning of nuclear plants. According to the General Radioactive Waste Plan, which ENRESA is required to review every four years, Spain is pursuing a Centralized Temporary Storage facility for spent fuel and high-level waste. Deep geological disposal has been the subject of extensive study and R&D in Spain and is currently retained as the preferred option for the final disposal of spent fuel and high level waste.
To address the siting process of the Centralized Temporary Storage facility for spent fuel and high-level waste the government created in 2006 an Interministerial Commission. It was to be responsible for establishing the criteria to be met by the storage facility, for providing necessary information to municipalities that might be interested in hosting the Centralized Temporary Storage facility, and for organizing a public call for the selection of candidate municipalities to host the site. After an intensive and nation-wide information campaign, the Commission published a call in 2009 for the selection of candidate municipalities to house the Centralized Temporary Storage facility. This call was made within a framework of transparency and voluntary acceptance by the municipalities. Fourteen municipalities responded; several subsequently withdrew and one did not meet all requirements, leaving 8 municipalities to be evaluated by the Interministerial Commission. In December 2011, the government announced that the municipality of Villar de Cañas in the Autonomous Region of Castilla-Lla Mancha had been selected.
