Initially, after the earthquake and tsunami disaster struck Japan and sparked a nuclear crisis, and caused the rest of the world to rethink its nuclear plans and carry out reviews of the safety of nuclear facilities, Italy’s government decided it was not going to jump on the review nuclear safety bandwagon.
At present, Italy does not have to worry about nuclear accidents, seeing as none of the country’s nuclear power plants are operational, as I mentioned in a recent post on the nuclear issue and Italy. Still, while others were thinking about having a rethink, Italy stuck to its guns and announced it was to forge ahead with plans for resurrecting its nuclear power generation industry.
Italy’s position provoked outcry’s in Italy, which decided to ban nuclear power back in 1987 after a referendum on the issue.
Well, no longer. Now, both Italy’s environment and industry minsters, who initially continued to support the Berlusconi government’s pro-nuclear line, have done something of a U-turn. Fears that going nuclear would cause the Berlusconi government to lose votes seem to be the reason for this turn-around.
Now, for the moment, it looks as though Italy is going to put its nuclear plans on hold, at least until Libya blows over, and, possibly, when the Japanese nuclear crisis comes to an end.
Then again, tomorrow being another day, another U-turn is possible. Nothing like being consistent, now is there?
