Italian Development Minister Announces Plan to Return to Nuclear Energy

Text of report by Italian privately-owned centrist newspaper La Stampa website, on 23 May

[Report by Alessandro Barbera: "Nuclear Energy, Restart In Five Years"]

Rome – Ever since 2001 there has been a breach among the centre- left parties. At that time those who favoured nuclear power plants were in a minority and afraid to come out into the open. During the electoral campaign, the option got into the programme of the Party of Freedom [PDL], and Giulio Tremonti [current economy minister] envisioned the building of nuclear power plants on the coast of Balkan countries. Now, seven years after the formal motions and 21 years after a referendum in which the Italians said no to the nuclear option, the new development minister, Claudio Scajola, definitively breaks the taboo at a meeting with Italian industrialists: “Before the end of this legislature, the cornerstone of a series of new power plants will be laid. Italy needs a shift in the energy field. And the shift must be made with determination and a sense of responsibility. Only nuclear power plants make it possible to have large-scale and secure energy at a competitive cost and with respect for the environment.”

It is too soon to talk about sites, or investments, but there are already plans. The third Berlusconi government relies on third- generation power plants . These are not yet “at zero risk,” but according to specialists, they come very close to it. It is this type of power plant that, under an accord the Prodi Government signed in Nice last fall, ENEL [Italian Electricity Corporation] has started building on French soil along with the EDF [French Electricity Corporation]. It is called the Evolutionary Power Reactor, and the first one is being built at Flamanville, Normandy. The real model of what the Berlusconi government proposes lies further to the north: at Okiluoto, Finland, where the Green-backed conservative government has said yes to the construction of a power station financed by a consortium of electric enterprises which have acquired exploitation rights in advance.

As was to be expected, major companies like ENEL, ENI [Italian Oil Corporation], or Edison [second largest energy company in Italy in the field of electricity and natural gas] say they are ready right away. On the other hand, thanks to an amendment passed by the then Berlusconi Government, since 2004 only ENEL invests in nuclear power plants outside Italy. Now, following its takeover of Spain’s ENDESA [National Electricity Enterprise], ENEL is among Europe’s major builders of nuclear power plants: it owns nine working power plants and is building five more. ENEL Deputy Manager Fulvio Conti is sure that five years would be enough for one to be built in Italy. Deputy Minister for Productive Activities Adolfo Urso, who had favoured nuclear power plants all along, is more cautious: “Let us say that, what with projects and licenses, it will take up to seven years.”

If the Union of Christian Democrats and Centrists [UDC], through its secretary, Lorenzo Cesa, says that it has “all along been for” a return to nuclear power, the centre-left says no to Scajola’s statement. For the first time in a long time, opposition to nuclear power plants runs from the Democratic Party [PD] to the Communist Renewal, and comprises the Greens, the World Wildlife Fund, and all the environmentalists. “At last the government has said something that will make it lose votes,” Veltroni’s [PD chairman] right-hand man Ermete Realacci says. Roberto Seta, the PD’s man in charge of the environment, is even more explicit: “It is an old, ideological, unrealistic, and unpopular proposition.” In the PD, however, there are people who, like Pierluigi Bersani, speak in a different tone: “It is the Prodi Government that has taken the first steps towards third-generation nuclear power stations,” people on the staff of the former prime minister say. Actually, in the PD’s programme there is a yes to this type of technology which, however, will not be available according to specialists, for another 15 years. Theoretically speaking, though, science may shoot ahead: yesterday, for example, Il Sole 24 Ore on-line recounted a successful experiment of cold fusion at Osaka University: the dream of all environmentalists. However, a possible nuclear power plant is the one Scajola proposes. It remains to be seen whether the cornerstone of a nuclear station will really be laid in Italy. Urso safeguards himself: “Let us not forget that, two years ago Albania, was available for this project.”

Originally published by La Stampa website, Turin, in Italian 23 May 08.

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