MADRID, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Greenpeace said activists climbed a cooling tower at a Spanish nuclear power station on Tuesday, and the environmental group called on the regulator to reject the plant&${esc.hash}39;s bid to renew its operating permit next month.
The Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) said the 1,000 megawatt Cofrentes plant had declared an emergency alert but was working normally after 14 activists broke through the perimeter fence.
"We ask the government, employers and unions to give unwavering support to renewable energy, if only for its enormous job-creation potential, and forget about nuclear power, which is not only dirty and dangerous but generates relatively few jobs," a Greenpeace statement said.
The Cofrentes plant&${esc.hash}39;s permit expires on March 20 and the CSN is due to rule a month before that on whether the plant is safe to operate for another 10 years.
Cofrentes is wholly owned by Iberdrola <IBE.MC>, Spain&${esc.hash}39;s biggest power utility.
The decision is binding only if the CSN recommends closing the plant, one of eight that supply 20 percent of Spain&${esc.hash}39;s electricity. Otherwise the Industry Ministry makes the final decision.
Photographs posted on Greenpeace&${esc.hash}39;s Web site showed "Nuclear Danger" painted on the side of the 125-metre-high tower and an unfurled banner with the slogan "Close Cofrentes now".
Although Spain&${esc.hash}39;s government has ruled out building new nuclear plants and has ordered the ageing Garona plant to close in 2013, its own energy plans assumes the other seven plants will still be running in 2020.
The permit for Cofrentes can be renewed for 10 years without breaching a current 40-year limit for running nuclear plants in Spain.
The government is planning to extend the limit, which would allow most plants to run for decades, although no decision would have to be taken until the 2020s. [ID:nLDE70I1Y9]
Spain took a lead in renewable energy in recent years to cut its energy dependence and greenhouse gas emissions but has slashed subsidies that have made it the world&${esc.hash}39;s fourth-biggest producer of wind power and the second-biggest of solar. (Reporting by Martin Roberts, editing by Jane Baird)
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