Italy’s nuclear renaissance is gone
A nationwide referendum is seen as a protest vote on corruption issues
This week a binding vote by 57% of the Italian electorate rejected four ballot measures by a stunning 95% rate. One of them would have put Italy on a path to produce 25% of its electricity with nuclear reactors by 2025. Although anti-nuclear sentiment runs high in Italy, the main target of voter ire was another ballot measure which would have provided some immunity for Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (right) who wanted to postpone four criminal trials until he was out of office.
Berlusconi, who is 74, is facing charges on separate matters including bribery, embezzlement, fraud, and, most spectacularly of all, charges of paying for sex with an underage woman. He is accused of using the powers of his office to cover up the charges. He's been in office for 17 years and until now never lost an election. Political observers say his decision to add the nuclear measure with the others doomed it from the start.
Italian voters, it appears, have had enough of his antics and want him out. All four measures were defeated by almost the same percentage, about 95%, which suggests all votes were seen as protests to send a message to incumbents they'd had enough of wine, women, song, and dance in place of real government.
Victory claimed by green groups
The vote in Italy was seen by Greenpeace and others as a huge victory for the anti-nuclear movement. Coming close on the heels of decisions in Germany and Switzerland to phase out their nuclear reactors, the Italian vote is part of a general retreat in western Europe from nuclear energy.
This is the second time Italy has rejected nuclear energy and it may be the last straw. In 1987 Italians spooked by the Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine voted to decommission their reactors. The result was a huge increase in coal-fired power plants and some of the highest electricity bills in Europe.
Italy has little investment in renewable energy sources and will have to import wind and solar know how. The biggest winner f the anti-nuclear vote is the natural gas industry which must now build interconnects to European sources. Natural gas from Libya, about 13% of Italy’s total suppy, has been cut off since fighting started there last April.
The vote this time does not undo any construction projects. In fact, Italy had actually done relatively little since 2008 to select sites or begin to develop a regulatory framework for safety reviews and licensing of new reactors. Italian utility Enel had developed an agreement to buy 12% of the electricity from an Areva 1,600 MW EPR being built in Flamanville, France. That deal is not affected by the Italian vote this week.
Italy began its now ill-fated drive to re-start the nuclear sector there in 2008. Economic minister Claudio Scajola told the New York Times in May 2008 the government was impatient to get started with construction of up to five new nuclear power stations that would produce a combined total of 10 GWe. Even so the New York Times reported that while Italy was planning new reactors, it was boosting its reliance on coal from 33% to 50% of electricity generation.
How serious was Italy about its nuclear program?
Problems with the pro-nuclear agenda emerged almost immediately with opposition by provincial governments which pledged to hold out for massive payoffs by the government in return for permission to site the reactors. Apparently, this is normal in Italian politics as the central government said it would agree to local subsidies once it selected the sites. Most of the sites were expected to be in the country’s industrial north.
However, in 2010 Scajola (right) himself came under fire for allegedly accepting a luxury apartment as a bribe from construction firms seeking government contracts. He resigned his government post. His replacement was not nearly so interested in pushing the nuclear energy agenda and it languished in 2011.
Adding to the slow down of the nuclear program was the appointment of an 80 year old doctor as the head of the effort to beef up the government’s nuclear regulatory agency. He told the Italian press he did it because the government twisted his arm and not out of any great enthusiasm for the job.
Italy’s nuclear renaissance is most likely dead for the time being. A future government faced with limits on natural gas supplies and pollution from coal plants might revive the idea, but not any time soon.
Turmoil in France
Meanwhile, in France last week turmoil erupted as Areva CEO Anne Lauvergeon (left) was not granted a new contract to run the global firm despite an energetic campaign to get it. Analysts said that her lack of support was caused by several factors including cost over runs at new reactor sites in Finland and France, the loss of the UAE contract to South Korea, and perhaps most importantly political bickering with the heads of other French state owned energy corporations.
The French government appointed another Areva executive who is little known outside the nuclear field. Investors told financial wire services they want answers to questions about Areva’s strategic direction especially in terms of new reactor projects or uranium mines as well as the U.S. enrichment plant. It may take some time for a new strategic direction to emerge under a new CEO.
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