Qualla: Cofrentes Nuclear Power Plant

Cofrentes Nuclear Power Plant: Introduction

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 19Tarrestnom65, CC BY-SA 4.0. Three kilometres apart, two very different engines heat the water of one Valencian valley. One is a dormant volcano whose magma chamber still warms the bubbling springs that gave the Hervideros spa its name. The other is a nuclear reactor that boils water drawn from the Júcar river and, in a strong year, supplies almost every household in the Valencian Community. At Cofrentes, deep geological time and the atomic age share the same stretch of ground.

Image: 19Tarrestnom65 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cofrentes Nuclear Power Plant: A Valley of Heat

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Arcadio Oliver Atienzar, CC BY-SA 4.0. The plant stands about two kilometres southeast of the small town of Cofrentes, on the right bank of the Júcar, roughly 61 kilometres from Valencia as the crow flies and a hundred by winding road. The setting is dramatic and slightly improbable. Just three kilometres away rises t...

Image: Arcadio Oliver Atienzar | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cofrentes Nuclear Power Plant: Contracts and Concrete

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. The project moved with the deliberate pace of a machine that cannot be rushed. Madrid's Ministry of Industry approved construction in 1972, and in March 1973 contracts were signed with General Electric to supply the reactor, the turbine and generator, and the first load of fuel. ...

Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Cofrentes Nuclear Power Plant: Powering a Region

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. Owned outright by the Spanish utility Iberdrola, Cofrentes is a workhorse. It averages close to 8,900 million kilowatt-hours a year, roughly the domestic electricity used by the five million residents of the Valencian Community. In 2010 it ran flat out for all 365 days and genera...

Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Cofrentes Nuclear Power Plant: A Machine Under Watch

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MinecraftDj121, CC BY 4.0. Few industries live under closer scrutiny than nuclear power, and Cofrentes is no exception. Spain's Nuclear Safety Council, the CSN, requires the plant to report even the smallest anomaly, and it does so at a rate of roughly ten notifications a year. The overwhelming majority ra...

Image: MinecraftDj121 | CC BY 4.0

Cofrentes Nuclear Power Plant: Towers on the Gorge

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. What a traveller actually sees is the pair of great cooling towers, their concave waists sweeping upward, releasing a slow plume of water vapour that hangs over the Júcar gorge on still mornings. To some the sight is reassuring, proof of clean, steady power that keeps the lights ...

Image: CC BY-SA 3.0