While the city was submerged in water on Friday night, Greenpeace Italy took a sailing tour of the city in three inflatable boats.

Greenpeace/Francesco Alesi

Unveiling banners reading ‘Nuclear: a dangerous waste of time’ and ‘Nuclear: False Solution’, our colleagues were there to highlight the Italian government’s reckless plans to build at least four nuclear reactors. Each will cost five to six billion euros (before the inevitable cost overruns) and won’t be operational for at least ten years meaning Italy will miss its EU target to reduce CO2 emissions 17% by 2020. It will also mean waste of the vital resources that could be used to establish clean, renewable energy projects and energy efficiency programmes – measures that can be put in place right now.

Greenpeace/Francesco Alesi

According to the latest UN report presented last November in Marrakech, Venice is likely to end up underwater some time in the next 60 years because of climate change. The future of the city and the planet is at stake. Can the Italian government and their fellow leaders around the world act in time?

(More information is available in Italian on Greenpeace Italy’s website, photos are available on their Flickr page. Their Nuclear Lifestyle website has collected 50,000 signatures in just two weeks. The action was covered by la Repubblica)

Posted by Justin at 5:07 PM | Permalink

We’ve talked about the nuclear industry using the same tactics to get their way all over the world – the cover-ups, the fixed consultations, the propaganda. But the problems the nuclear industry creates for itself are also the same the world over.

Look at Italy, for example, and its push for a nuclear ‘renaissance’ (we much prefer the original) of its own. Planning and funding problems, a rush to get things done (‘six months to finalise the sites of future plants and waste storage facilities, and to establish an independent atomic agency’) that can only lead to problems later on, and in-fighting between those who want a slice of the nuclear pie (‘[Italian industry minister Claudio] Scajola support for Sviluppo Nucleare Italia has angered other suppliers’)

We’ve been here before, and before, and before. Does the nuclear industry hand out the same script at the start of every new venture? What’s missing? Ah, yes – what nuclear tale would be complete without our favourite character, Areva…

Finmeccanica SpA Chairman Pier Francesco Guarguaglini said Wednesday the defense and aerospace company is unsatisfied with the talks with French state-controlled nuclear group Areva SA over building nuclear reactors in Italy. Negotiations with Areva "are still unsatisfactory because they don't include the activity of the reactors,"

Areva, in unsatisfactory behaviour shock? Where’ve we heard that before? Oh yes, in Finland. And in the UK. And in the US. And in… And in…

If the nuclear industry was a film studio, it would just make the same bad film over and over and over again. The films would cost a fortune to make and the public would have to pay to see them whether they wanted to or not.

Posted by Justin at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

When is comes to supervillains Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi makes Superman’s nemesis Lex Luthor look like Lex Loser. He’s changed his appearance at least once. He has several lavish and secluded hideouts. He is the country’s richest man and controls vast parts of its media. His government has passed bills making him immune from prosecution. Next up, Berlusconi wants to revive Italy’s nuclear industry 22 years after a national referendum voted to reject nuclear power. In a flourish we’ve come to expect from one of the world’s top supervillains, there are reports that Berlusconi may allow a new fleet of reactors to be built on military sites meaning they are unaccountable regional and local authorities. Can an announcement about Italy’s first satellite made of diamonds or plans to build a fleet of space shuttles to poison the Earth be far behind?

Meanwhile, in America, a new tourist attraction has opened – the first nuclear weapons production facility in Hanford, Washington is now open to the public. It’s an interesting choice of holiday destination to say the least. ‘Did you go away this year, Fred?’ ‘I did indeed, Bob. I took the wife and kids to the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States.’ How do you beat that, we wonder. A tour of Dante’s Inferno, perhaps?

And there’s more bad news for the nuclear industry’s risible claims that nuclear power is safe. Tim Murphy, federal facilities bureau chief for the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection, says of the nuclear contamination from the Nevada nuclear weapons test site creeping ever closer to local drinking water supplies: ‘Unfortunately, today there is no technology to clean this up.’ The Department of Energy’s Bill Wilborn agrees: ‘The only thing we can do at this point is adopt a long-term monitoring plan’. That’s the spirit! A ‘fingers crossed’ approach should do wonders for building public trust in nuclear power. Reports that the nuclear industry’s new slogan is ‘Nuclear power: Because we’re all dead in the long term’ were denied by a spokesman.

Posted by Justin at 6:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Here’s ISN Security Watch's senior correspondent in Italy, Eric J Lyman, on the country’s nuclear ambitions…

It will be a major step in Italy's desire to become more energy independent. Both Italy and France are relatively poor in terms of natural resources…

…including, in case it’s escaped everyone’s notice, uranium. You know, the stuff they put in nuclear reactors?

But projections are that the four Italian plants will produce about as much power as Italy currently imports from France…

…and so Italy will no longer import French power, but will instead import French/Russian/Chinese/American/Japanese/whoever’s nuclear fuel. How’s that for being more energy independent?

Posted by Justin at 8:08 PM | Permalink

Today's big stories from the nuclear industry:

AFP: EPA to rebuild uranium-contaminated Navajo homes
’FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) - The federal government plans to spend up to $3 million a year to demolish and rebuild uranium-contaminated structures across the Navajo Nation, where Cold War-era mining of the radioactive substance left a legacy of disease and death. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and its Navajo counterpart are focusing on homes, sheds and other buildings within a half-mile to a mile from a significant mine or waste pile. They plan to assess 500 structures over five years and rebuild those that are too badly contaminated. "These families, with the resources they have, they would not be able to put up a new home for themselves," said Lillie Lane, a spokeswoman for the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection
Agency. "We don't know how radiation in the home affected these families, but in the end people will be living in safe homes." Between the 1940s and the 1980s, millions of tons of uranium ore were mined from the 27,000 square-mile reservation that spans Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. Many Navajos, unaware of the dangers of contamination, built their homes with chunks of uranium ore and mill tailings.’

Continue reading "Nuclear News: EPA to rebuild uranium-contaminated Navajo homes" »

Posted by Justin at 6:58 PM | Permalink