Photo credit: Palo Verde LinkedIn
From afar, they look like giant pears glistening in the daylight. Nuclear power plants are immediately recognisable. In the United Kingdom, there are currently five plants dotted across England and Scotland.
If you scour the Italian landscape, however, you will see many church spires but no nuclear towers. The reason is simple: nuclear energy is banned in the Italian Republic. But that might not remain the case for long. The current government wants to reverse the ban and build out a fleet of nuclear reactors. That is good news – both for Italy and the rest of Europe.
Nuclear power is safe, clean and reliable. Put simply, it is the energy source of a bright future. As I argued in the report “Harnessing the Power of the Atom”, which I co-wrote with Thomas Munson, it is essential to reduce our carbon emissions, achieve energy sovereignty and power AI. As an added benefit, it also boosts the economy by creating well-paid jobs.
This might sound surprising. Nuclear power has long had a toxic reputation. From The China Syndrome to The Simpsons and the recent HBO series Chernobyl, it is often presented as a sinister energy source. That misconception is at the heart of the story of nuclear power in Italy. Call it veni, vidi, revocati.
Yet it had all started out so well. After the devastation of World War II, the newly-formed Italian Republic was looking to kickstart economic growth. At the time, nuclear energy was trending. “Generations millenniums hence,” gushed an American journalist, “may look back upon these years when atomic energy was first put to work in the same spirit in which we now think of the… occasion when man first learned the use of fire.”
Italy was not going to miss out on the atomic rush. And so, in 1946, it started a civil nuclear programme. By 1963, there were three operational plants in Italy and more under construction. The country was the third biggest generator of nuclear electricity behind only the United States and the United Kingdom.
For the next two decades, the atom went from strength to strength. In the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis, Italy’s economy plunged due to a dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Nuclear power was hailed as a homegrown alternative. In 1975, the government released a Piano Energetico Nazionale – or National Energy Plan – which included the construction of 20 nuclear power plants.
Then, a nuclear reactor in the Soviet Union malfunctioned.
The Chernobyl disaster grabbed headlines in 1986 and soon cast a radioactive cloud upon the minds of Europeans. The Italian public was no exception and came to believe nuclear power was dangerous.
With the benefit of hindsight, it is obvious that people overreacted to Chernobyl. It did not reflect an inherent danger in nuclear technology. Instead, it was caused by ineptitude of the late Soviet bureaucracy.
Moreover, the scale of the disaster was massively exaggerated. According to Our World in Data, the confirmed death toll, taking into account both direct and indirect deaths, was less than 100 people. By comparison, a single oil rig disaster around the same time left 167 people dead. That disaster is long forgotten and did no lasting damage to the oil industry.
And yet Chernobyl seriously hurt the nuclear industry. Although accidents are incredibly rare – there have only ever been three – they became a constant source of dread. Amid this climate, Italy held a referendum in 1987 on nuclear energy. The public overwhelmingly voted to dismantle Italian reactors and prevent future construction. Nuclear was now illegale. Another referendum was held in 2011 and achieved the same result.
Cut to 2025: Italy, the fourth largest economy in the EU, is the world’s second largest electricity importer. Its electricity price is also above the European average.
At the same time, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown the danger of relying on hostile foreign powers for energy needs. Climate change, meanwhile, has only increased the need for clean electricity. And the advent of AI, which consumes huge amounts of electricity, means that every country now needs a reliable energy source.
The time has come (again) for nuclear energy. The Italian government is well aware of it, and has therefore introduced legislation to overturn the 1987 ban. The bill was approved by the Council of Ministers last month. It will now proceed to Parliament. The plan is for nuclear power to provide up to 22% of Italy’s electricity by 2050.
“We need to make some long-term choices. That’s why we have chosen to restart the development of nuclear power,” said Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Gilberto Pichetto, the Minister of the Environment and Energy Security, added: “With this measure, Italy equips itself with a fundamental tool to look to the future with realism and ambition.”
Forza atomica.
