Santa María de Garoña Nuclear Power Plant
former Spanish nuclear power station
Santa María de Garoña Nuclear Power Plant is a mothballed nuclear power station at Santa María de Garoña, Burgos (Spain). It consists of one boiling water reactor (BWR) of 466 megawatts (MWe).
The reactor vessel was built in 1966 by the Dutch RDM., being the oldest Spanish Nuclear Power Plant in service. The reactor is a BWR/3 model with a Mark I containment building.
The plant was opened in 1971 and officially closed on 5 July 2013. Nuclenor, the plant's operator, had sought a ten-year extension, which was supported by Spain's Nuclear Safety Council (Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear, CSN) despite Spain's policy of phasing out nuclear power. On 2 July 2009, the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade compromised, extending the operating license for an additional four years subject to safety upgrades, though this extension was never used.
On December 16, 2012, the plant operator Nuclenor has begun shutting down the nuclear power plant, which was due to close in mid-2013, to avoid producing taxable power during 2013. The decision was spurred by an impending law, which would impose a tax in the annual sum of about €150 million. The safety upgrades required for extension of the operation would have cost some €120 million.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Santa María de Garoña Nuclear Power Plant” as former Spanish nuclear power station. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as former Spanish nuclear power station. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 29, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1695264. Authority coordinates are 42.775, -3.208. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1966, 1971, 2013 and 2009.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Santa María de Garoña Nuclear Power Plant”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Santa María de Garoña Nuclear Power Plant primary sources, Santa María de Garoña Nuclear Power Plant archive and Santa research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Santa María de Garoña Nuclear Power Plant”?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
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This entry incorporates text from “Santa María de Garoña Nuclear Power Plant” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.