“Return to nuclear power in Italy“: in recent days, headlines like this have appeared everywhere. Put that way, however, it seems that from tomorrow, in a month or at most in a year, nuclear power plants will begin to be built in our country. This is not the case. September 23 the Senate has given the final green light to the bill which entrusts the Government with the task of rewriting the rules on nuclear energy in Italywith 81 votes in favour, 51 against and 7 abstentions. However, it is one law delegation. So it is possible that the first power plants will come into operation by 2033-2034, although it is still too early to say for sure – just as there is no information yet on the possible sites for their construction.
But let’s start from the base. A law “normal“, put simply, is a text that already contains all the rules we need. With one law delegationInstead, Parliament sets limits, i.e. principles, criteria and times, and entrusts the Government with the task of writing the detailed rules. These rules, in jargon, are called “decrees implementation“. In other words, Parliament has established the objectives and general principles for the return to what is called “sustainable nuclear”, but the real work has yet to begin.
So this law does not build any power plants but it indicates the issues on which the Government will have to write the rules. The decrees will have to regulate the production and use of sustainable nuclear energy according to the European taxonomy, the manufacture and reprocessing of fuel, the dismantling of existing plants, the management of radioactive waste and spent fuel, as well as the research and development of fusion energy. Yes, you read it right: in the perimeter there is also the fusioneven if we are still far from being able to exploit it.
With the vote of the Senate, the parliamentary examination was closed, and now the text, to come into force, must be signed by President of the Republic and published in Journal Official. Only from that moment does the stopwatch start. The Government will have 12 months from its entry into force to adopt one or more legislative decrees, and after each decree it may approve supplementary and corrective amendments within 24 months since its entry into force. We tell you about this mechanism for a specific reason: to make you understand that the journey is long, and that the power plant will not arrive tomorrow, nor in a year.
The Minister of Environment and Energy Security Gilberto Picket Fratin he has clear ideas about the first steps: he assured that the decrees will arrive by the end of the year. To see the first systems turned on, however, the times are much longer, indicating the two-year period 2033-2034 as a plausible estimate. And it’s just an estimate: it could take even longer. Much will depend on the implementing decrees and the maturity of small modular reactors (SMRs), which are not expected to arrive on the market before the first half of the 2030s. Not to mention that in the meantime the Government could change, even more than once, and with it the priorities.
