The nuclear bill has been definitively approved by the Senate

The Senate has definitively approved the Pichetto delegation bill on nuclear power, already approved in the Chamber.

The measure aims to restore nuclear legislation to Italy, to allow the reopening of power plants, closed after the 1987 referendum.

The bill gives the government the delegation to issue decrees regulating the matter, and defines the fields of intervention: construction and operation of power plants, production of hydrogen through nuclear energy, management of spent fuel and safety, establishment of control bodies.

The Minister of the Environment and Energy Security, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, who signed the bill, has repeatedly declared that he plans to issue the implementing decrees by the end of the year.

"Today is a historic day for Italy: Parliament has definitively approved the law on new nuclear power. Sustainable nuclear power, together with renewables, will make Italy a safe, independent and competitive country.
Italy will have more energy for families and businesses.
This is the direction that the main countries of the world are taking"commented Pichetto Fratin. "We have kept our promise to approve the new nuclear power plant in this legislature and bring the energy of the future to Italy – added Pichetto Fratin -.
Now we are already working on the next objective: drafting the implementing decrees to concretely apply the law. We will do it, for sure, by the end of the year".

And "yes convinced" the bill came from Action leader Carlo Calenda who announced his favorable vote in the chamber: "We will vote convincingly in favor of this measure.

Italy must return to nuclear power, of which it was the absolute protagonist"he said in his explanations of vote. "The nuclear path was abandoned for the first time under pressure from the fuel oil lobbies, which led to the construction of fuel oil power plants, the most polluting material imaginable and obviously out of date today.
Again, we are not faced with an ideological question, but with a fact: long-term electricity consumption in this country will double.
We are facing an explosion in the need for electricity supply and we only have two ways to do it: gas and renewables or a mix of renewables and nuclear.
This last mix costs half as much. We just have to move and we just have to do it soon, to undo the damage done by the first act of populism that this country experienced with the 1987 referendum; I repeat, it was the first act of populism, where reason did not prevail and we chased fear, and we are still paying the consequences today.
I want Italy to be a great industrial power and without nuclear power this won’t happen, so let’s do it, let’s do it quickly".

Avs’ position is completely opposite: "The right presents nuclear power as a sort of response to the climate crisis, to high energy prices, to our country’s dependence on foreign countries. A gigantic mass distraction, the alibi for not answering for the failure of the government’s energy policies.
After four years of Meloni in government, the country continues to have energy prices among the highest in Europe. The question to ask is what benefit could be obtained in the coming years from the return to nuclear power?
The answer is that no benefit will come from nuclear power.
Power plants and technologies are not yet available, in the meantime we will continue to burn gas and depend on imports and Italians will always pay very high bills.
All this propaganda about nuclear power is exactly the way to prolong the dependence on fossil fuels. The government wants to transform Italy into a gas hub without having gas, and into a nuclear power without having uranium.
AVS says no to the return to nuclear power, no to the blank delegation to the government"stated the group leader of the Greens and Left Alliance of the Senate Peppe De Cristofaro, president of the Misto group of Palazzo Madama.

"The right commits the country on the basis of costs that it does not know, on the basis of technologies that are not mature, on the basis of times that are incompatible with climate objectives, continues the red-green group leader. The right exposes Italy to a very risky and very expensive investment, so then, as has already happened, if it goes badly the State will take care of it.
A sort of privatization of profits, nationalization of risks and collectivization of losses, a film already seen and re-watched many times.
The answer to the energy crisis is there for all to see and it is called renewable energy: solar, wind, thermal. Something is being done, but more needs to be done.
Betting everything on nuclear power, as the right does, without clarifying how much it will cost, who will pay the extra costs and how the waste will be managed, means deceiving the Italians. Before thinking about new power plants, it would be a good idea to solve the problem of the old ones.

The country needs energy independence and cheaper energy and renewables are the only concrete way to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels, gas and oil imports, emissions and the burden of bills for families and businesses"he concluded.