5.D THERMAL POWER STATION OF BOROA

THERMAL POWER STATION OF BOROA

Boroa´s thermal power station called Bizkaia Energia, it's a combined cycle power plant located in the township of Amorebieta-Etxano (Vizcaya), from 2,5 km from the town center, and  it´s an thermoelectric station whose principal fuel is natural gas.

This thermal power plant produces 20% of the total energy of Euskadi, so you can see that it´s a big amount. But, as you can see in this picture, most of the energy produced contaminates the air.

They don´t know the causes of these emissions or if they are polluting smokes or not, but, apparently it seems that some compounds with sulfur are burned, or perhaps with hydrochloric or nitric acid. The central insisted that the smoke always occurs in the starter motor and that doesn't pollute. “Everybody knows that the combined cycle does not produce sulfur.” said.

The responsible of the station said that due to the crisis, they were forced to stop and start up more often, and is in that moment when the smoke turns yellow. In addition, the Basque government verify that the quality of the air is not affected because of the presence of the station.  

Apart from the problem of the emissions of “yellow smoke”, is said that this central pollutes more than 568.000 cars, so as a result, Amorebieta´s inhabitants have organized more than 10 protests to close the thermal power station

Furthermore, apart from causing air pollution, they also cause water pollution due to the fact that the station poured 50,000 liters of sodium nitrite to the rivers, causing that the river network have five black holes in the Ibaizabal river, between Boroa and Elorrio, Oka and Barbadun.