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Italy Votes To Abandon Nuclear Power
ElementOfDestruction writes "Italy has joined Germany in halting the production of energy from atomic power generation. This differs from Germany in that the Italian decision was made by a public vote, rather than a government mandated shutdown. 57% of Italian Households voted in this public measure. While democracy should trump all, is it wise to hold majority opinion so high that it slows down progress?"
We did it de facto instead of de jure but the fact that we haven't built any new plants in 30 years means we have ultimately also given up on nuclear. The politicians caved to public fear and so made the process of permitting a plant to be so expensive as to make it economically impossible to continue to build new facilities. We will ultimately shut down our current plants and shift that generation to something else, it will just take longer.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Holy biased summary, Batman!
The summary is a bit misleading. In 1987 after the Tschernobyl disaster Italy had a public vote to abandon nuclear energy. The last reactor was shut down in 1990. This was only a vote against a re-entry into nuclear power, something Berlusconi was pushing forward.
"Die endgueltige Teilung Deutschlands - das ist unser Auftrag." - Chlodwig Poth
Sooo. If 51% of Americans voted to teach only creationism in schools and evolution should be illegal that should be ok by your rules?
Funny but they have not abandoned nuclear power. They are pretending they have to make themselves feel good. They import no less than 16% of their electricity from France. They have just move the responsibility for the reactors to another nation. As Italy needs more power they will import more from France and use even more nuclear power outside of their own control and regulation. This should be called the Grand Delusion. They are just going to use more and more nuclear power while taking no responsibility for it themselves.
Welcome to reality 101.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
They're in a particularly sunny climate, there are already rolling out solar thermal storage systems so that their solar can generate 24 hours per day, They have tidal sources which France used to generate hundreds of megawatts back in the 60's out of a single installation -- ignoring the efficiency increases of what we can do today.
Fuel is finite, so fuel based sources are out of date. Meanwhile, renewables just keep coming down in price. Solar dropped 20% last year alone, and is expected to drop another 20% this year. Meanwhile, nuclear keeps increasing in cost. Costs for implementation, fuel, owner's costs, massive grid tie-ins, and let's not even discuss the fact that they don't pay for their own insurance and push that on to the public purse in the event of a catastrophe.
So "progress?" I don't think that word means what you think it does. The first world has made it's decision and you can flog the dead horse of nuclear, but the only new adopters will be the third world and powers that want to refine for nuclear weapons, such as arabic countries, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The baby's fine -- please stop sending business cards.
preposterous. obviously indirect deaths don't count for nuclear yet they do for coal. what a bankrupt comparison
There is more to this decision than simple "anti-scientific" feelings.
First of all there is the trust we can have in people managing these beasts, i.e. zero. Our administrators are not the ones with public safety in mind. Google some info about two years' ago earthquake to see how well regulation on constructions works.
Second and related, public works in Italy (and many private ones) are often just a way to throw money at your business friends. It is unlikely that something so big will be done in the most efficient and quick way. Most probably it will never recover the expenses, if it ever gets built.
Third there is the timing problem. We are late to the train. Other countries alread recovered the initial expenses and only have to keep mantaining/improving. They can undercut us easily and we would end up buying from them anyway. (also notice we did not have plans for an erichment plant, so we would have to buy enriched uranium...)
Fourth and related, the plants will arrive in no less than 20 years. Then this is essentially a bet on the price of uranium in 20 years. With many developing countries building plants I think this bet is a losing one...
But yes, I am stupid and I only want to slow progress down, laugh at me.
yeah, i remember when George Bush was a white republican, since his re-election to a third term he looks like a black democrat.
Sorry, if you have a logical argument as to why this is preposterous, please feel free to cover it. I'll add credentials to the above quote just for good measure, so you're aware of the source of this statement and why he may be in a position to make such a statement:
By all means, please now back up your statement that his comparison is bankrupt with some form of proof. I think given the scale of air pollution, mining dangers and associated health issues and such makes his comparison quite a reasonable assertion.
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"Last week’s E. coli outbreak in Germany - potentially traced to an organic farm - was more deadly than the largest nuclear disaster of the last quarter-century."
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"According to World Health Organization statistics on E. coli deaths, in just the past two years, more people have been killed by the disease than all fission-related events since the dawn of the nuclear age - even if you include the use of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
To put it into perspective.
That would only be true if nothing else had changed globally. I'd say the massive increase in oil prices and increasing demand in the far east is enough to change the status quo. This is more like standing on the beach ordering the tide not to come in. It's all very laudable choosing alternative sustainable energy sources over nuclear if someone can tell us what those sources are.
Except the reactors at the Fukushima no.1 complex include some of the oldest operating reactors in the world. Reactors 1-4, the ones involved in the Fukushima incident, were built BEFORE Reactor 4, the one involved in the Cernobyl incident.
Not true, Italy had four nuclear power plants:
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energia_nucleare_in_Italia#Centrali_elettronucleari
(sorry, Italian Wikipedia, English one has not such a table).
While many Slashdotters happily wave away its real-world problems (waste, decommissioning, uninsurability, capital intensiveness, fuel supply, terrorism, non-distributed grid model, construction lead time and yes, slight potential for massive damage to life and property in a large geographic area) as irrelevant, many others are less sanguine. And that is not just because they are idiots--they look at the factors, weigh them and draw different conclusions.
And there are alternatives that might well be better. A recent study by the California Energy Commission that looks at estimated costs of 21 types of energy generation facilities estimates that a gen-3 Westinghouse AP1000 1,000 MW Pressurized Water Reactor would generate electricity in 2018 (the first year any of them could be expected to reach operational status) for between $0.17/kWh and $0.34/kWh.
The cost of solar PV today is already competitive with the high end of that range, and is dropping at a rapid pace.
This comes on the heels of another new report showing that the free-market insurance costs for nuclear would add from ($0.20/kWh) to a staggering $3.40/kWh.
If costs are the same or lower for renewable energy technologies that have numerous benefits and far fewer risks, why would rational people choose nuclear?
Well - they're already the largest power importer in Europe - because they went out of nuclear power after Chernobyl...
Remember this one? A storm felled a tree that cut one of the power lines transporting power to Italy - this tripped of a cascading effect cutting off all of mainland Italy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Italy_blackout
But - even when you say 'This differs from Germany in that the Italian decision was made by a public vote, rather than a government mandated shutdown.' - this is only part of it. Germany had already decided on a nuclear exit before - it was the current government that extended the runtimes of nuclear reactors, causing public outrage. They mostly reverted back to the original targets now, since they increasingly find themselves becoming more and more unelectable, keeping to nuclear power. The governments stance pro nuclear power might have carried for a while longer, if it wasn't for Fukushima. Basically, the pro nuclear lobby said something like Chernobyl couldn't happen in Germany as our plants are safer than the Russian ones -- they couldn't convincingly say that they're safer than Japans...
I can imagine people think they're being green when voting down nuclear power, but actually their vote is causing much worse environmental impact and global warming by the necessary increase in conventional non-nuclear energy production.
Sorry that you live under that illusion but the founding fathers had a very low impression of the average person and their ability to make intelligent decisions. That's why the original voting populace was so small.
Look at California - they vote on almost major even using propositions and the outcome changes depending on who does a better job on getting out the vote. Pure democracy only works if ever person is perfectly informed and actually votes.
Where will you get power now? France's nuclear plants?
we already do. I live in Turin, next to france, and we DO import nuclear energy from france: the total represents about 7% of energy consumption; the dominant energy producer, ENEL, operates nuclear plants in Spain and Slovenia (Link), and France is Upwind from us, so I would laugh my head off if it wasn't sad.
Italy operates a few small research reactors, and part of the energy bill that I receive bimonthly has an Item called "sovrapprezzo termico", i.e. the part that I pay ENEL to compensate it for the added costs of dismantling the reactors that were stopped after Chernobil, plus the lost income due to fossil fuel use. But hey, it's democracy, honey.
For all it's worth, two other referenda were worse still; we voted out compensation for capital expenses incurred in mantaining and building water infrastructure, which call the question of who will put up the money required to reduce the water losses that the acqueduct has (about 20~25% here).
Just the other day, my wife came in while I was brushing my teeth and closed the water tap, saying "the TV said to save water!"; I said "good Idea, let's reach the same level of eccellence of the water company: let's leave the tap open overnight."
coming back to Nuclear energy: the incumbent italian operator gets a sizable part of its energy production from fully or partly owned and operated nuclear plants, but all of them are abroad, and all except one (in slovenia) are too far to make exporting energy to Italy viable. To add insult to injury, many people said "we italians are incapable to guarantee the orderly functioning of nuclear plants". Maybe the spanish public ain't so picky.
Now i want to see how they will sell to the public on building coke or gas turbine plants for baseline operations; as most Slashdotters know, renewables are uneconomic unless someone pays the piper.
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
And while I totally agree with the sentiment - I'd say that it is hard to consider Keith objectively when he has always been against fossil fuels at seemingly any costs (which he should be). So in the spirit of actually contributing something to the conversation:
Risks from reactor accidents are estimated by the rapidly developing science of "probabilistic risk analysis" (PRA). A PRA must be done separately for each power plant (at a cost of $5 million) but we give typical results here: A fuel melt-down might be expected once in 20,000 years of reactor operation. In 2 out of 3 melt-downs there would be no deaths, in 1 out of 5 there would be over 1000 deaths, and in 1 out of 100,000 there would be 50,000 deaths. The average for all meltdowns would be 400 deaths. Since air pollution from coal burning is estimated to be causing 10,000 deaths per year, there would have to be 25 melt-downs each year for nuclear power to be as dangerous as coal burning.
From: http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/np-risk.htm
Let's be careful about what we think democracy does for us.
Democracy is the best system out there because it recognizes that ultimately, the people are what gives any government its power and authority. Therefore, not only is it fair, it is also wise to co-opt the largest number of people into the system and have them feel like they are part of it.
On the other hand, just because the majority votes for something, it doesn't mean it is correct. That's not to say that the masses are ignorant, although they certainly may be about certain specific and advanced topics. What it is saying is that voters have local self-interest in mind, and tend to lack perspective.
Consider that 3,000 people died on 9/11 from planes hitting the World Trade Center. Not only were there direct deaths, but other people, particularly responders and bystanders in the local area could well have chronic health issues for years to come. Yet, we are in the process of building yet another huge building on the site, which could also become a target and no one has called for people to stop using planes.
Why does no one want to outlaw massive skyscrapers or jumbo jets? Well, that seems obvious: we feel that we really can't do that.
However, the underlying reasoning is that we can manage the risk from planes hitting skyscrapers. If we couldn't manage the risk, planes and/or skyscrapers really would face being outlawed because no one wants to constantly face waves of jets being used like guided missiles at buildings.
Now take nuclear plants. There is also risk there. But how much more risk is there in a power plant than there is in a jumbo jet with a skyscraper target? How much more is there from a nuclear plant than the air pollution, heavy metals and radioactive material produced by a coal plant?
The fact is that democracy is indifferent to facts, it is simply a way to produce effective governance. Sometimes, democracy tells the truth where a self-absorbed dictatorship won't or can't. This gives the impression that democratic governments are also "smarter". We know that isn't always the case. Voters can be convinced of things that are not scientifically reasonable. Both sides of the aisle know this. Democracy is a system that provides high legitimacy for a system by recognizing the people, but it can be held captive by small groups that have specific agendas.
So yes, the Swiss have a long tradition of working democracy. That only means that democracy works for them. It does not mean that their democracy makes correct decisions, only that the decisions they have made have yet to cause their government to fail. Chances are that Switzerland is small enough that it can dispense with nuclear power, if it wanted to. That doesn't mean that the rest of the world can. It doesn't even mean that the Swiss won't be using nuclear power, it just means it won't be produced locally. It means that the Swiss will be happy to let someone else take the risk to provide them power, confident in the knowledge that someone else will.
Absolute Democracy is the exact opposite of freedom. You cannot have a Right when all laws are subject to the will of the majority. The act of voting doesn't make a policy moral or even "effective." When your rights are violated it is little consolation whether it was done by a vicious dictator or by the voting of your neighbors. Both pure democracy and pure dictatorship are morally vacant and eventually, self-destructive. The only useful form of government is one that recognizes the individual and their inalienable rights.
That must be why no-one lives in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Yes, Japan is advanced.
No, Fukushima was not. First criticality at Fukushima was in the 1970s, meaning that construction started in the late 60s, meaning that they place was designed in the late 50's.
I don't think we can call anything that is 60 years old in design "advanced." Please stop distorting facts with your bias.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Do you think it would help if they pointed out that bean sprouts killed more people this year than the Fukushima power station "disaster"?
Maybe truth on the ballot might have helped a bit:
A) Fix global warming
B) Stop using nuclear power
Please choose one.
US coal has not rendered any location on earth uninhabitable for future generations.
5 seconds of googling later...
the other 49% didn't deserve that.
People are manipulate to easily when dealing with thing the have no experience with.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You all are completely missing a key part of the picture. Regardless of the environmental issues around nuclear waste disposal and all the arguments against coal power generation, Italy has one crucial difference with the rest of the world: Mafia. Mafia is in every aspect of the public life, especially public investment programmes and subsidies.
We have buildings crumbling and killing dozen of people, chemical plants exploding, all because of negligence tied to assigning public funds to mafia-owned companies that drain public money knowingly saving on safety measures because they are above the law and they will never pay if someone dies because of it.
Can you imagine what would happen in a power plant built using mafia contractors in the south of italy, close to rivers and farming fields? No thanks. We have far more pressing issues to solve before we can venture in something so volatile and risky.
We have a chemical chernobyl in the countryside region outside naples, lymphatic and bone cancers skyrocketing because of the widespread, systematic illegal disposal of wastes from the whole europe. Endemic corruption.
Even if i was in favor of nuclear power (which i am not, except for research), i cannot see how this technology can even be remotely safe in Italy. Italian scientists, traditionally supporting nuclear power, agree with me (cfr: Margherita Hack's claims about the vote).
This vote is not against nuclear power per se. It's against nuclear power *in Italy*, because we know we don't have the social, economical stability to tackle such a venture. The same reasons led to very harsh protests against building a massive bridge between mainland Italy and sicily. We can't really face modernization unless we get rid of this plague, and a lot of Italian people know this and voted accordingly.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
What about pointing out that the Fukushima disaster was caused by building a reactor right on a coastline where tsunamis occasionally happen, and by being struck by both an earthquake and a tsunami at the same time?
The meltdown (they have confirmed that three reactors have experienced a meltdown) has been caused by greed and cutting corners. They were warned 20 years ago that flooding of generators placed in a basement was the most likely cause of reactors overheating and should be moved to a more appropriate location, this was brought up by the Japanese nuclear authority in 2004 and again 2 years ago. Who is going to pay?
Nuclear can be safe, it's the implementation and enforcement of standards that is dangerous.
There is a distinct (tongue-in-cheek) possibility that the Italian government might not be trusted to enforce the standards required. The Germans may feel the same way about their government. Is your government strong enough to stand up to multinational corporations?
BM3