Oggi come si può evincere dal titolo del post, voglio trattare a serious argument for expressing personal remarks. The latter much less serious.
The topic of the day is the return of Italy or rather the Italian government - which are not the same thing, to nuclear power for electricity production.
As mentioned above the following comments are my own but for what possible reason. Yes, because in tackling such a sensitive subject should never lose sight of the reason as a guide to follow in dealing with subjects that lend themselves to exploitation due to their complexity and ideological disputes vario tipo.
Ma siamo in Italia e tutto ciò che ha a che fare con la politica è diventato oggetto di tifo fazioso da stadio, per cui da una parte ci sono i sostenitori dei partiti al governo che sono per il nucleare ad ogni costo: quelli che con una barretta di uranio ci alimenterebbero anche lo scaldabagno di casa. Magari di casa del vicino perché non si sa mai…
Dall’altra parte ci sono i detrattori del governo che sono contrari al nucleare a prescindere, quelli a cui, per capirci, appartengono quegli amministratori locali che scrivono “comune denuclearizzato” nella targa di benvenuto al loro paese salvo poi servirsi del reparto Nuclear Medicine Hospital of the neighboring country in the unlikely event of need.
first start by saying that I believe that nuclear power plants of the third and fourth generation (those that should be built in Italy are those of the third as the fourth-generation technology is still under study and not yet available from the point of view operating) are sufficiently secure. And I say 'enough' because in technology, as sophisticated as in this case, absolute security does not exist. Hence the security of nuclear I have no particular concerns provided they are designed and built with reliability, not weakened the concrete highway Messina-Palermo, so to speak. And as long as operations are managed with equal seriousness.
But supply-side controls have already heard things that I did not like at all ..
In fact once the new plants built before being put into service undergo a licensing procedure through which a body check, make sure the new plants have all the necessary security measures and have been constructed respecting the project and all applicable technical standards. Only if all these checks are OK and only then, the new plant will get the license to become operational. Now we must not be a scientist to understand that those who work at this stage of licensing should be a third body that has not taken part in the process of planning and construction and that it has no interest in that the plant comes into operation or not, if found to be responsive to all the stringent safety criteria. The Italian government seems oriented to name itself instead of licensing the companies and set up in a years time to complete the licensing procedure itself. And here we go again: the control that you control yourself! And worldwide licensing phase lasts several years. Who are we to be able to set a deadline so short? In this field, the rush is a luxury that we can not just concede. The risks sono altissimi e insostenibili.
La possibilità che il governo del ‘fare’ diventi il governo del ‘far male’ va scongiurato con ogni mezzo. A parte questo, ripeto: credo che le nuove centrali siano sicure.
E’ su tutto il resto che nutro più di una perplessità…
La prima è di ordine metodologico: l’Italia ha deciso di rinunciare all’utilizzo del nucleare con un referendum popolare. Non vedo perché non si dovrebbe rifare un nuovo referendum per ritornare su questa decisione. L’attuale governo ha si la maggioranza relativa degli elettori voters but not be the absolute majority of Italians!
The second concern is economic. The choice of nuclear power is justified by the needs of strategic diversification of energy sources and especially with the prospect of reduced cost of electricity. But we are so confident that the energy produced by new nuclear power plants is so cheap? On this subject, that is, on the economy of nuclear power, I've read and heard everything and its opposite. This is ultimately a trivial economic accounts that everyone should be able to understand without too much difficulty if explained clearly enough. The problem is that the budget as boulders weighing several parameters that are cloaked in an aura of uncertainty and that supporters and opponents of nuclear power to tame the benefit of their convictions. Now some of them there should be no uncertainty: the cost of a power plant and the time required for its implementation should be given certain and not esoteric mysteries. The problem is that this data is not absolutely clear, without forgetting that we are in Italy, the country where the difference between a cost and an estimated final cost and often willingly is greater than 100%!
The idea that I have made is that the choice of nuclear power is at the limit of economy. Weigh the advantages and disadvantages in particular the future cost of fossil fuels including the uranium that is possible to predict only approximate.
About Uranium What is certain, but they are things that the government is careful not to say, is that today's production of uranium ore is below the current world demand. In other words, the uranium extracted from uranium mines covers only a part of the actual total requirements. The difference between uranium and uranium extracted from plants that actually used according to the sources varies from 12 to 30% is covered by uranium from the dismantling of nuclear arsenals of Russia and the U.S. and the strategic stocks. Now you do not need to be eagles to understand that the proportion of the uranium from the disarmament of the superpowers and the strategic stocks will disappear quickly. One can imagine an increase in production capacities, however, that unless major new discoveries of oil fields, can barely meet the demand of existing power plants but hardly new. In short, the scenario of supply of uranium is such that demand exceeds supply and will always overcome with more direct impact on increasing the price of the same. Among other things, even now the price of uranium is being economic growth and all analysts are ready to bet on increases sharply in the coming decades.
Behold in the cost-benefit value of the uranium price is or will be used? That of ten years ago when the cost was low and stable, or what will presumably a few decades when the new central Italians are ready to become operational?
If the choice of nuclear power is justified by the need not to be dependent almost entirely on Russian gas, why should it be more beautiful than having to depend on Russian uranium, since Russia is among the leading producers also Uranium?
The third concern is the main reason why today I am against the nuclear option: the problem of waste. In a referendum on the issue if it were proved reasonably cost-effectiveness of nuclear power, but would vote in favor as long as you find a real solution to the problem of radioactive waste. The reality today is that the waste problem is far from resolved. The problem today in countries that possess nuclear power stations is solved roughly the same way: you make a hole in the ground, preferably in a mountain and better if the hole and very deep. Then you take the waste you put in sealed bins and maybe drowned in the concrete and then you throw everything into the hole and it is hoped that God send us good ...
This method may be fine for the short term, has shown worrying gaps in the medium term (I can think of the problem of groundwater contamination in Germany occurred in a storage site containing waste bins located in a salt mine exhausted and abandoned. And in the long or very long run? No one knows or can make reliable predictions.
This is because nuclear have the defect but not least, to remain radioactive for many centuries. And nobody knows, because there is no previous experience In this regard, the behavior of the materials used to contain the radiation shield and as a result of a hundred, two hundred or three hundred years of radiation. Will keep their storage capacity or degrade inexorably, with catastrophic consequences for the environment? And most of all the sites chosen today for the storage of nuclear waste because of low seismic risk or hydrogeological so are a hundred or two hundred years?
view that the environment in which we live we only borrowed from the generations that follow us do not feel right to leave a legacy on his shoulders so risky.
About the latter subject, I heard a few months ago in a broadcast journalism some ministry undersecretary of some forecasts say that according to 'authoritative' technology over the next forty years will progress to finding a permanent solution to the problem of radioactive waste . This is why I propose to defer the construction of power stations in forty years when the waste problem is finally solved. If you accept similar reasoning should also have the courage to say against, for example, the construction of the bridge over the Strait of Messina between thirty years because so much will be useless since presumably by this time there will be a teleporter. (Me l’ha detto il comandante James Tiberius Kirk!)
Ma queste sono solo opinioni mie personali. Credo che la decisione, visto la delicatezza dell’argomento e delle possibili conseguenze sulla vita di tutti noi, dovrebbe essere presa a maggioranza. Non credo che la decisione debba ricadere solo sull’attuale classe dirigente composta prevalentemente da ultrasettantenni formatisi negli anni cinquanta quando il nucleare veniva visto come l’unica scelta possibile, priva di grosse controindicazioni alla crisi energetica. Classe dirigente, quella attuale che tra trenta anni quando dovrebbero entrare in funzione le prime nuove centrali italiane sarà si spera bella e sepolta. Ed effettivamente, a dire the real evil and to think, I suspect the unconditional acceptance of certain political class, whose time horizon usually never goes beyond its electoral mandate, the construction of which will not enjoy direct benefits. Above all, I suspect that the haste shown in taking this road, ponder in advance, as it would be right but do the pros and cons. Perhaps because the management of contracts for the design, construction and testing of new power plants, fruit they can make an immediate illegal? Mmm ..
However for Italian citizens to decide how to do just that through a referendum on the subject should be informed clearly and objectively. That should be able to hear the arguments of all the experts: engineers, physicists, economists, doctors, geologists, biologists, etc.. those for and against each having an equal right to explain his motives and his opinions as long as each claim is supported by objective data and documented.
as though I have the impression that this is precisely what he had in mind when he told Berlusconi that Italian public opinion was prepared and trained. Guess I'll have to put up other spots with Bugs Bunny in white coats who will discuss the goodness of nuclear option. Or even worse: numerous episodes of "door to door" in which a partial Bruno Vespa in front of the model of a nuclear power station interview: the Parietti, Crepet unfailing criminologist Bruno on why nuclear power plants are the best choice.
If this is the 'information' that will be dished up in the coming months on the subject, I invite everyone from now on be replaced alternately bets on the center of the Simpsons "spheroidal" - as Homer calls it - of Springfield. Will certainly be more educational. D'OH!
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