Italy to Revive Nuclear Power After Shutting Down Last Atomic Plant 35 Years Ago

Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, Italy’s energy minister, attends a meeting in Turin, Italy, on April 29, 2024. Stefano Guidi/Getty Images

Italy is planning to revive its use of nuclear energy after a 35-year-long hiatus, according to Italian Energy Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, who revealed fresh details of the plan to the Financial Times on July 14, a little more than a week after he said at a conference in Milan, Italy, that an evaluation process had begun on the renewed role of nuclear power in the country’s energy mix.

Nuclear energy is a controversial issue in Italy, which shut down its last atomic plant 35 years ago and where citizens voted in a 2011 referendum against reviving a national nuclear program after Japan’s Fukushima disaster.

Mr. Fratin offered hints about Italy’s possible revival of nuclear power at an event in late April ahead of the G7 energy meeting in Turin, Italy, saying the reintroduction of atomic plants would help Italy reach energy independence and help it transition away from fossil fuels.

“A contribution from nuclear energy in our energy mix would help Italy a lot in meeting the net zero target by 2050,” Mr. Fratin said at the time while expressing his support for the development of small modular nuclear reactors.

Later, at the Global Energy Transition Congress in Milan, Mr. Fratin offered more details of the plan, saying small modular fission reactors would be the country’s short-term focus, followed by a long-term plan to deploy fusion power.

“Nuclear and fusion will complement the increasing penetration of energy production from renewable sources and other low-carbon solutions,” he said at the time. “We expect to be able to reach about 8 GW from nuclear power by 2050, covering more than 10 percent of the nation’s electricity demand. This percentage may increase to over 20–22 percent by fully exploiting the potential of nuclear power in our country.”

In his July 14 interview with the Financial Times, the energy minister further disclosed that the country’s lawmakers intend to introduce legislation that will enable investments in small modular nuclear reactors that could be brought online within a decade.

He also told the outlet that nuclear power should account for at least 11 percent of Italy’s total electricity consumption by 2050, noting that renewables such as wind and solar “cannot provide the security” the country needs.

The 11 percent nuclear component in the country’s electricity consumption, along with the more ambitious possibility of 20 percent to 22 percent capacity, was also featured in Italy’s National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan, which was submitted to the European Union’s executive body, the European Commission, at the beginning of July.

In his interview with the Financial Times, Mr. Fratin also spoke about overreliance on solar panels, the bulk of which are made in China.

“It is clear that the development of solar is strongly linked to imports from China ... a country that has a very government-controlled enterprise system, which can be a political, as well as commercial tool,” he said.

Besides the risk of relying on China for solar panel supply, there are also questions about the pollution associated with China-sourced photovoltaics. A 2023 analysis by a nonprofit research group claimed that Chinese-made solar panels are about three times as dirty in terms of carbon emissions during their production as has been claimed by the U.N. panel on climate change.

The Italian energy minister’s latest remarks on the country’s planned nuclear revival came a day after leaders from across the European nuclear industry published a manifesto outlining their priorities for the European Commission, following recent elections that saw the executive body reconstituted for another term, with new membership.

The manifesto urges the European Commission to establish a level playing field for all net-zero technologies, rather than giving preferential treatment to some—such as wind and solar—while discriminating against others through, for instance, taxation policies.

It calls on EU leaders to implement consistent and coherent policies that facilitate the deployment of nuclear power, including access to EU funds and finance.

The manifesto also urges the EU to provide greater support for nuclear research and to boost innovative nuclear technologies.

Nucleareurope, the Brussels-based trade association for the nuclear industry in Europe that came up with the manifesto, is also hoping to persuade the European Commission that nuclear power is a solution to many of the challenges facing the EU, including climate change, access to affordable energy, and security of energy supply.

“Nuclear is a clean and sustainable technology, which is why it essential the next Commission treat nuclear on an equal footing with other fossil-free technologies,” nucleareurope Director General Yves Desbazeille said in a statement. “Our expectation is that future policy proposals will focus on goals–decarbonisation, competitiveness, energy sovereignty–rather than on specific technologies.”

Nuclear power accounts for nearly 26 percent of the electricity produced in the EU, with France far and away the top nuclear power producer in the bloc, with 56 nuclear power reactors that account for more than 60 percent of the country’s total power generation.

Italy built four nuclear power plants in the 1960s and 1970s and had plans to construct more. However, in response to anti-nuclear sentiment following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, Italians voted in a referendum to halt support for nuclear plans and later shut them all down.

Several decades later, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi tried to revive Italy’s nuclear program, but the 2011 referendum put a halt to those plans.