By 2025 Italy will have to bring back over 235 tons of nuclear waste temporarily stored in the territory by France and of United Kingdomwhich we have paid for from around 2001 to today 1.2 billion euros. But where will we put them? The two main options are a temporary storage or a National Storage in one of the 51 possible sites disclosed about a year ago. And why does Italy have to take radioactive waste if we don’t have nuclear power plants? It is not a hoax and today in this video we clarify this issue so that when you hear about it you will already have a clear picture of the situation. To fully understand this story, however, we must take a small leap back in time, more precisely in 1987.
The closure of Italian nuclear power plants
Until 1987, Italy had 4 nuclear power plants:
- that of Trino (in the province of Vercelli);
- of Caorso (in the province of Piacenza);
- of Latin;
- of Garigliano (Caserta).
However, the Chernobyl accident in 1986, as you know, put all the spotlight on these plants, shifting public opinion from favorable to against. Specifically, between8 and 9 November 1987 Italians were asked to participate in a referendum on nuclear power plants and the overwhelming response was yes. But yes to what? At the closure of nuclear power plants? Actually no, in fact in the referendum 3 things were asked:
- Prevent the state from opening new power plants in municipalities that did not make themselves available to do so;
- Remove contributions from local authorities that agreed to build power plants in their territories;
- Prohibit Enel from participating in the construction of nuclear power plants abroad – something which, among other things, will be repealed in 2004.
So in the referendum there was no proposal to close existing nuclear power plants. In any case, as you know, in all three cases the yes vote won with an average percentage of 77.4%.
The interesting aspect, which perhaps is less known, is that the choice of close the four plants present was not due to a law, but was essentially a choice dictated by the general concern widespread among the population. So it was decided to radically change the energy strategy and in no time at all the so-called phase of decommissioning.
The decommissioning phase
The decommissioningMeaning what divestmentit is thelast stage of life of an industrial plant – that is, one which, in this case, involves removing the spent nuclear fuel, dismantling the plants and decontaminating the area. Let’s focus on moving the fuel away. The spent nuclear fuel – unlike what we might think – and be careful here, technically it is not a refusalbecause it can be treated chemically, that is, it can be “reprocessed”, to obtain new fuel to use. In this process obviously there are some “waste” and so about 5% of the source material effectively becomes a radioactive waste.
The problem is that in Italy there is no site where to treat this spent fuel and therefore already since the 60s we have made agreements with the United Kingdom before and with the France then in 2006 to have them retry it. The fuel recovered through reprocessing, therefore the reusable one, was sold over the years to other companies that operate nuclear power plants while radioactive waste is stored for years in France and the United Kingdom.
Obviously they don’t take our waste with good heart: they were squeezed trade agreements and therefore every year Italy pays these two countries, and the overall cost from 2001 to today is estimated to be approximately 1.2 billion euros. Attention: this figure actually includes all the management of irradiated fuel and we cannot know the percentage strictly linked to foreign countries because it is confidential data. And in case you were wondering, we are actually the ones paying this amount: until 2022 it fell under the heading “system charges” of the electricity bill. More specifically the “tariff component A2”.
However, within these contracts with France and the United Kingdom there is also another key point, namely that Italy should return its waste by 2025.
Radioactive waste to be recovered by 2025: the possible options
I said should because to take back the waste that is currently found abroad we must necessarily have a structure in our territory that has at least the same level of security of the deposits in which the waste is now found. And if it is true that the nuclear supply chain already has high safety standards in itself, in Italy these are even more stringent. So to take back the waste – and also to avoid paying a huge amount of money to other countries every year – we have two paths:
- Store this radioactive waste in a temporary repository;
- create a National Repository and store them there.
Let’s look briefly at the two options.
Temporary storage
The temporary storageas the name suggests, is a structure that has the task of receiving waste for a certain amount of time, awaiting a national warehouse in which to permanently store it. These are existing plants that must be modernized and equipped with all the safety systems required by law, so as to be able to guarantee the safety standards necessary to be able to collect waste. To date, perhaps not everyone knows it but we have it on Italian territory 20 temporary depots of radioactive waste.
Yes, because Italy today produces radioactive waste. For example, there is waste from research centers or hospitals that deal with radiomedicine. For example, we are talking about nuclear imaging diagnostics or oncological treatments with radioisotopes.
National Repository
As an alternative to the temporary deposit there is the National Deposit, i.e. a single site into which all the country’s radioactive waste would flow (therefore both those from the former power plants and those produced today). This solution is actually already present in various countries around the world. Just to give an example, France currently has two depots on the surface and a third geological repository for deep storage is under construction.
In this regard, let’s clarify one thing: the national repository will be a definitive repository for all low-level waste. The radioactive waste that is abroad today, however, is high activitytherefore those, sooner or later, will still have to be stored inside a deep geological depositand that is also currently in the planning stage.
Returning to the national repository, its project has existed for years but it has not yet been decided where to build it. The problem is therefore where. The point is that they have currently been identified 51 possible sites to create the deposit – which, let’s reiterate, it will be a single depositcompared to 20 currently exist – but the problem is, as anticipated, that none of the identified areas want to give the green light to the start of the works, so we are essentially in a stalemate situation. So, let’s return to the initial question: where will Italian radioactive waste end up?
The future of Italian radioactive waste
Difficult to answer this question. Surely meeting the deadline will be a very complicated undertaking because by 2025 it is difficult to have a suitable temporary storage or, even more complicated, have a national warehouse finished and operational. For this reason it is possible that France and the United Kingdom will retain our waste for a longer time than agreed upon – which as you can imagine will only be possible after new trade agreements.
