Nuclear, first power plants between 2030 and 2034: the Senate approves the enabling law
The enabling law on sustainable nuclear power has been definitively approved by the Senate. Minister Pichetto Fratin estimates the start-up between 2033 and 2034, but the sites remain to be identified.
Quick Look
- The Senate has definitively approved the enabling law on sustainable nuclear power.
- The first power plants could come into operation between 2033 and 2034, but the sites remain to be identified and the focus will be on small modular SMR reactors.
AI-generated summary
Why It Matters
The Senate has definitively approved the enabling law on sustainable nuclear energy, almost forty years after the 1987 referendum.
The first Italian nuclear power plants could return to operation between 2033 and 2034. There are still uncertainties about where they will be built. Almost forty years after the 1987 referendum, the Senate definitively approved the enabling law on sustainable nuclear power, with 81 votes in favour, 51 against and 7 abstentions. The text had already passed the House in June.
The date comes from the Minister of the Environment and Energy Security, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, author of the law. The minister specifies that this is an estimate made "based on the elements" provided by sector experts. It is not a deadline set by law. Before arriving at the construction sites, implementing decrees are needed. The government has twelve months to adopt them, plus another 24 for any corrections. Pichetto assures: "We will do it, for sure, by the end of the year."
The law does not identify specific locations or authorize the construction of power plants. The text defines the regulatory framework that will allow projects and technologies to be evaluated in the future. The choice of sites therefore remains an open question and will be one of the key issues in the process, which will have to take into account various criteria: technical, environmental and territorial.
The delegation gives the government the task of regulating the construction and operation of plants, waste management, safety, control bodies and the production of hydrogen from nuclear sources. It does not allocate funds to build the plants, but only initial coverage to start the program and reorganize the Security Agency. On a financial level, the focus is on public-private partnerships.
The government's objective is not to revive large traditional power plants, but to develop small modular reactors, the Smr (Small Modular Reactor). These systems are produced in the factory, transported to the installation site and assembled in series. For supporters they are cheaper and safer than traditional ones. They are still in the experimental phase, and the producers hope to bring them to the market in the first half of the 1930s.
What to Watch
AI outlook — possibilities, not facts
Adoption of the implementing decrees by the end of the year
Likely · Within months
Open Questions
- Where will the sites of future plants be located?
- Which private companies will participate in the partnership?
