Italian parliament votes for return to nuclear energy

Brace yourself, every large nuclear accident has been preceded by the Italian considering nuclear again. (Well at least Tchornobyl and Fukushima, ”which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice”)

I've seen quite a few SMR proposals over the last couple of years and not a single one that dared to address the whole cycle from deployment to eventual decommission as a function of the total revenues - costs to operate. Most of these projects seem to be made to bilk investors or governments rather than to actually produce power. The day Italy produces the first KWh that is net profitable to the operators without counting subsidies I will be highly amazed, and that's assuming they get to operational in the first place.

I'm Italian and I'm super happy with this.

The referendum that made nuclear energy illegal in Italy was held right after the accident of Chernobyl; people voted with their gut, not with their mind.

Curiously enough, some Italian town signs still have a small sub-sign reading "denuclearized municipality" (example: https://live.staticflickr.com/1421/712461235_e46a2c7db5_z.jp... )

>Rather than reviving the large reactors of the past, the government is focusing on small modular reactors, or SMRs, and other advanced technologies that supporters say could be safer, more flexible and quicker to build.

>The legislation does not authorize the construction of any reactors. Instead, it creates the regulatory foundation needed before future projects can be proposed, assessed and approved.

Giant step for SMRs. I'm hopefull for greater NATO collaboration regarding energy security if SMRs prove commercially viable.

I don’t know why commenters here are treating energy technologies as winner-takes-all. Solar is cheap and getting cheaper, and that’s fantastic news for everyone, but that doesn’t mean it suits every country, every niche, and every application. There are plenty of places that don’t have massive tracts of spare flat land, or the right latitude, or favorable weather. Even if nuclear isn’t ever the cheapest option, the world energy market is so huge and diverse that it still makes sense to have nuclear as an option.

It is sad that this has become a topic of the culture wars. Nothing good comes out of this, certainly not a rational weighing of the pros and cons of nuclear power.

I’m particularly interested in how they plan to finance reactors in a grid dominated by solar. I wouldn’t be surprised if they legally allow the building of new reactors but then fail to find investors. But perhaps they plan on using them as some sort of strategic assets and will just run them at a loss?

115 $/MWh.

Thats what EDF's stating their NUWARD SMR (up to 400MW) will cost in France, just as comparison. Not cheap for the taxpayers in Italy.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/frances-edf-plans-10...

Hopefully Germany will follow next. It’s absurd that they rely on fossil fuel and coal when they can build modern nuclear plants that can provide stable energy for the energy heavy industries.

It would take 5-10 years to build the power plants and maybe with Chinese aid even faster

There should be a shared EU nuclear consortium, a public version of Airbus but for nuclear energy spearheaded by France.

Fun fact: in the 60s Italy was after the US and UK the county with the most advanced nuclear energy plants. These days still North Italy produces key parts of nuclear reactors in other countries.

I wonder how much of a factor is that nuclear plants are effectively "unbombable". Ukraine's thermal plants have taken a beating, but their nuclear plants are still generating.

This is somewhat strange. Italy has a lot of sun, and a lot of mountains for these pumped storage hydropower plants. It is way harder to store output from PV on Great European Plain.

Has there been a single SMR deployed and working yet? There were lots of talk about GE BWRX-300 and Rolls Royce SMR but none of them seems to have even started construction.

Even if it passes, you'll see the first nuclear power plant not before 15 years.

And it will not pass before the next legislature in 1 year.

Can someone explain me like I’m a middle age person why Italy, and France, bet on nuclear fission?

It’s not competitive on cost anymore and we don’t have a good track record.

As an Italian, I know exactly how this playbook plays out.

Nuclear energy is a big business for intimates friends, so on the trend that it's a green tech (apparently no carbn footprint, but what about the depleted fuel?) they approved the reopening of this technology.

Why going for SMR?

Well, it's the penalties business model and SMR is ideal because they are on paper, no valid proven commercial implementation. A company wins the contract, in this case i'm not sure if they'll go for a open bid, the contract include research, design, building and so on. At some point the political wind changes, contract canceled and hundreds of milions in contractual penalties to pay. It is essentially a mechanism to transfer public money to private friends, with zero obligation to ever break ground.

It's from 19th century that they are thinking about a bridge between Sicily and mainland. The last time the project was revived, the playbook went exactly as described above: years of studies, cancellation and massive state penalties paid out to contractors for a bridge that still doesn't exist (Sicily and mainland are on different tectonic plates).

No mention there is no national deposit for nuclear waste, especially in a highly sismic territory.

Voting for it is easy and I hope it catalyzes innovation. But still, completing a damn reactor without insane budget overruns is the problem.

David Sacks had an interesting stance on SMRs on Oct 19, 2024, before the election. Notice how he stands up for the downtrodden, poor population:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye012kzWJ3A (1:10:10):

"I'm virtue signaling because I'm Pro nuclear yes it's a luxury belief you're promoting something nuclear power is a luxury belief you heard it here first because they're going to put these things in poor communities and so it's never going to affect your life they're putting them next to Data Center in like Oregon like it's easy for you to say oh I support nuclear look how Progressive I am look how smart I am you haven't internalized the downsides [...]"

Really good news for Italy and for the whole of Europe (if not the world)!

The atomic revival of Europe

Enrico Fermi will stop spinning in his grave

> after voters *twice* rejected it in national referendums

Democracy is just lovely.

Have your citizens answer to a straightforward question on a topic twice, have them reject it, both times.

And the government will still go its way.

I'm not against nuclear per se, I'm just baffled at the "democratic" process.

Sweet. Minimum 20 years and $20Billion before any electricity is produced.

I wonder how much solar, wind and batteries you could get for that, and how quickly it would be deployed

So their plan to burn oil and keep the AC mandated no cooler than 24°C in their homes didn't work out? Huh.

I just don't get people saying how terrible climate change is going to be for the world and then refuses to support nuclear.

If climate change is such a critical problem, then let's try everything to get this solved even if it costs more to do it. If you are only willing to do some solutions because it is cheaper then I don't believe you when you say it is important to solve.

And frankly, we don't know the full impact of climate change, so having as many alternatives as possible just makes sense. Hydro can be impacted by droughts which will be more common. Solar may be impacted if there are increased storms. Wind may be impacted due to stilling (slowing of wind due to an increase in co2).

Why not throw nuclear into the mix to ensure we do not run out of power?

Nature is healing.

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Presidente Giorgia Meloni is awesome and it’s amazing to see a woman empowered by the democratic process and serving the will of the Italian people

https://youtu.be/sNhPplje7xM?is=h5VtnMe9wva-VKGM

Always funny to see how plutonium pilled hn is. Nuclear power in Italy is idiotic. They won't even be able to cool the damn reactors. Europe is drying out.