A few days before Christmas break, the
government gave the official green light to nuclear power plants and
gave a positive opinion to the identification of sites that will host
the eight planned nuclear reactors. Our politicians have agreed to return using an energy source that Italy had refused back in 1987 when, through a referendum, the people said "that's enough".
It's no new that this government, once again, does not care about what the Italians want. Now it has found a new slogan, "the energy", but as a precaution politicians chose silence and we won't know where the plants will arise before the election in March. From the draft of the decree states that the areas, to be eligible, must meet "a pattern of benchmarks relating to environmental and technical characteristics".
Some of these parameters should be air quality, water resources, population, climatic factors, geology, landscape value. And
for the residents of municipalities near to the central (within
20 km from the plant) there would be discounts on energy bills,
municipal waste, and additional personal income tax and other taxes, too.
It would seem all gold, but it is not. Because they can speak of nuclear power as the energy of the future, they can build a storage for nuclear waste, but they don't dare to publicize a decision so unpopular. So here's the solution: hide it. The government has not yet announced the sites of power plants to avoid losing electoral support. But local administrators have understood this and so in
late December they had submitted a document, also signed by the
mayors of the PDL, which opposed the government's method. A
document signed by Raffaele Fitto, Minister for Regional Affairs and
Chairman of the State-Local authorities, the man of institutional
connection.
Two days ago, the government has responded by calling for January 28th the conference with the regions. And the undersecretary of economic development with special responsibility for energy, Stefano Saglia, said that "the identification of sites is a process that still needs time" and must be made in consultation with the regions, but we surely won't have a list before one year. So, once again, Italian government doesn't know what to do, that's why they say something different every day, without having a national energy plan, without informing local authorities about where the plants will be, without thinking that there won't be real benefits in a short time.
They are talking of 8 nuclear power plants in 20 years, but until now as
many as 16 regions out of 20 have legislated against the nuclear power plants. The last one was Sicily, a region ruled by the center-right, that with a bipartisan vote was formally united to declare itself a nuclear-free territory.
Two days ago, Greenpeace activists have attacked on the Colosseum a giant banner against the nuclear, but their protest did not affect the politicians. They play dumb, they take time. Angelo Bonelli, president of the Green Party, is convinced that the sites are already decided. They would be Montalto
di Castro (Viterbo), Borgo Sabotino (Latina), Trino Vercellese
(Vercelli), Caorso (Piacenza), Oristano, Palma Montechiaro (Agrigento),
Monfalcone (Gorizia) and Chioggia (Venice). While
the former nuclear center of Garigliano (between Latin and Caserta) will host
the national repository for radioactive waste, as evidenced by the
notice of Sogin, 2009 (2009 / S 47-068707).
If every year we still pay in our bill 400 million euro for the decommissioning of nuclear power plants closed in 1987,
whereas for a couple years new plants will not be completed and
that to build them we will spend a lot of money and we won't have real benefits at the beginning, we do not understand why our country still does not want to take the path of alternative energy, focusing instead on something really more dangerous.
Marianna Lepore
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