By Victor Akan
Italy has planned to finalise a draft plan by the end of 2027 that would allow nuclear power to be used again after a 1987 reactor ban.
Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, Italian Minister of the Environment and Energy Security, said this on Thursday.
“The plan itself generally systematises the whole issue and it will go hand in hand with the definition of a national programme aimed at developing nuclear energy production that contributes to the strategy to achieve carbon neutrality goals by 2050.
“It is a step-by-step path that I believe will reach its goal by the end of 2027,’’ Fratin told the Sole 24 Ore newspaper.
Fratin added that he had sent the draft plan to the cabinet’s Legal and Legislative Affairs Department and once its approval is received.
The document would be placed before the government for consideration during one of its next meetings.
Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that the plan calls for the development and use of small modular reactors using third- and fourth-generation technologies.
It also suggests the creation of Agency of Nuclear Safety, which would be tasked with overseeing and authorising the construction of plants.
After the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster in 1986, a referendum was held in Italy.
More than 80 percent of the citizens voted in favour of abandoning nuclear power.
In 1990, Italy shut down its last nuclear power plants.
In 2010, the government of Silvio Berlusconi agreed to restart the national nuclear power development programme..
In June 2011, more than 94 per cent of Italians again opposed such a programme.
Italy currently has no functioning nuclear power plant.
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