Italy is temporarily without nuclear power plants

Italy is temporarily without nuclear power plants

In Italy the government announced a moratorium on building nuclear power plants. According to the Minister of Industry of Italy Paolo Romani, moratorium on the building will operate at least year. It was caused by the impact of tsunami and earthquake in Japan, which resulted in crashes of several nuclear power plants.

Information about the moratorium on nuclear plant construction was announced on Tuesday 22 March 2011. As expected, the Cabinet of Ministers of Italy will pass a draft declaration to the parliament.

Last week the Italian government has already indicated that nuclear power development program of the country will undergo significant changes in the security sphere because of recent tragic events in Japan, which may appear the largest man-made disasters in this century.

Currently almost all the territory of Italy is dangerous during earthquakes, is one of 8 industrialized countries, which do not use nuclear energy. At the same time, Silvio Berlusconi, the current prime minister, has repeated that in the future Italian nuclear plants can provide for a quarter of the energy in the country.

Use of peaceful nuclear energy was banned in Italy on the results of the referendum, which took place in the Apennines in 1987, a year after the accident in Chernobyl.

A new referendum on nuclear power plant building in Italy was to be held this summer. However, in this situation the government fears the next popular "no". Thus, the moratorium is intended to serve primarily to reduce the negative attitudes of Italians towards nuclear power.

Ilya Kalachev

Date: 27/03/2011