Made in Italy: radioactive politics isn’t renewable
It’s a New Year, the perfect occasion to begin a new series entitled “Made in Italy”. Which however won’t talk about fashion, pizza or Ferrari but more practically about the true exclusive products of the current “Italy system”, that is organized crime, corruption, mental degeneration conveyed by television and genetic tendency to support fascism disguised as well-being or its illusion.
Let’s start with energy, with the debate among politicians and that amoeba of civil society that in the Italian newspapers mostly relates to the “boss” instead of the reader like in any civil country. To say “debate” isn’t really right because there hasn’t been, from what I recall, a serious confrontation between opinions, policies and solutions but only the reiteration, by the slaves of the lobbies, of the same obsessive idea on the need to rely on the nuclear energy to “renew” the power sources of the country.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, already untouchable by the law and ready to jail or pull the connection plug to hundreds of thousands of P2P users, has strengthened during the last press conference of the year that “we must return to atomic energy“. In the country of Gomorra and the toxic waste stored by the camorra within the soil and the quarries of Campania (practically behind my home), the only solution to “answer to a future demand” for the energy needs would be to build atomic plants that will produce who knows how much radioactive material to get rid of, which will inevitably end to contribute to the growth of cancer death rates in the present and above all in the future.
Obviously, as always at home and abroad, Berlusconi says a huge amount of bullshit triviality. Without wanting to seek in detail which interests are hidden behind this will to push on with the adoption of nuclear energy, the fact of the past years is that Europe is already talking, debating, planning and foreseeing on the exploit of energy sources that, contrariwise to the fission plants that have brought the Chernobyl disaster, represent the only possible future for a humanity that do not want to self-destruct.
Scientists from the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC) consortium have planned the DESERTEC project, which foresees to use huge mirrors located in the North Africa deserts for supporting plants based on the solar thermal, a source that exploits the Sun energy to heat at high temperatures a liquid or a gas which will then be used to supply the turbines for power production. An undersea direct-current grid will ultimately carry the energy from Africa to Europe, with an estimated efficiency of 90% on the ideal length between the Black Continent and London.
Here we aren’t talking about pipe dreams but concrete science: in a report commissioned by the German Environment Minister in 2006, two physicists member of TREC have estimated that by 2050 the entire Europe could obtain the total amount of its energy requirements from the DESERTEC plants, with a great “bye bye” to oil and the dependence from the instable zones of Middle East for the decades to come. Solar thermal power is among the other things a kind of technology conceived by the Nobel prize winner Carlo Rubbia, a highly regarded scientist that in Italy is obviously treated like dirt by the lackeys of the Berlusconian (and not only) lobby and which is currently turning his intuitions into business applications in the near (and way more civil) Spain.
For the DESERTEC project to take off the main requirement is the political will, a will that in Europe must deal with the French determination to go on with nuclear plants. It’s undoubtedly a very ambitious project, but it could really bring forth the solution to all the energy problems of the Old Continent including Italy, securing a future for the generations that currently have no one.
Besides any other thing, despite all its issues DESERTEC surely is a much more intelligent and sustainable solution for Italy than building atomic plants, in a country in whose underground there already are streams of leachate and radioactive waste thanks to the decennial work of organized crime (mostly) from Campania. But Berlusconi, you know, is a buddy of the French president Nicolas Sarkozy, is someone accustomed to give the impression of a resolver, a commander in chief, which has solved Naples’s waste emergency by opening new venoms plants and by coming to an agreement (he or someone on his stead) with the only (hidden) organizations that have the power, in those areas, to stop or exasperate crises.
Berlusconi resolves problems on the blackboards of TV shows, saves the economy with the useless and humiliating charity of the Social Card and assures the United States to be able to continue gathering atomic bombs in the Italian bases. Hence heartily thanking those fellow countrymen which since decades contribute, with their vote, to the perpetuation of the Berlusconian regime (already equivalent to fascism in its soul but not yet in the appearance), I can’t help but wish them to be the first ones to get cancer when the radiant atomic future of the country will have spread its toxic effects. Happy 2009 to everybody.
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9 Responses to “Made in Italy: radioactive politics isn’t renewable”
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Saying that all fission plants are like the RBMK reactors of Chernobyl is like saying all italians are mafioso or facists.
Comparing Soviet RBMK reactors to PWR’s, BWR’s or any of the coming generation III, II+ och IV reators is a completely false argument against nucelar power. The RBMK’s were dangerous by design in a way that no other reactor type in the world is. The flaw that caused the Chernobyl were well known by the entire world long before april 26 1986. The failure of the Chernobyl reactor is not an argument against nuclear power but against the failure in governing that was the Soviet Union.
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I see the point, but the main problem here is waste, radioactive waste. This is the argument highlighted against the utter unreliability of the nuclear plants in Italy and elsewhere. Imho, to not to see this means to have a very short-sighted approach to the problem.
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Waste is not a problem. The Swedish KBS-3 method is nearing completion. It has long since been proven safe. Now they are simply broadening the margins even further. In 2009, SKB will pick the site for the Swedish deep geological repository and file for the permit to build it with the authorities.
And yes, KBS-3 is without doubt a safe method. Natural analogies such as Oklo and Cigar Lake have long since proven that the barriers are more than safe. In Oklo, transuranium products have not moved more than a few inches in 1.7 billion years, despite being washed through by water. KBS-3 adds another three(!) barriers.
Read up on KBS-3 here: http://skb.se/Templates/Standard____16775.aspx
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Sorry but I don’t think so. This is the problem, period. My country’s soil is already sick for huge amounts of waste stored by organized crime, I can’t even imagine how things could become with radioactive waste.
Furthermore please consider that the post is mainly focused on the situation here in Italy. If I had to discuss about nuclear energy from within another (and more civil) country I would probably have a more moderate stance.
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You didn’t even follow the link, did you? Read up on the method before you dismiss it.
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I’ve read it, and I haven’t changed my idea at all. It would be very nice to not to fuck up the Earth for future generations with our utter stupidity.
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No you did not read it, or you did and decided already before you hit the page you would dismiss it.
It’s just sad to see people that are this bloody afraid to think “Hmm… you know what, that might actually be a good idea”. But then you wouldn’t have anything left to throw bile at, would you? Because, imagine the *horror* if someone actually proposed a solution that might work! What would you whine about after that huh? No for goodness sake, you must keep something to complain about… otherwise all the suckiness in your life would actually have to be your *own* responsibility and not something you can blame others for.
Gods I utterliy despise those that would let the world go down in a cloud of sooth so they would keep on whining rather than perhaps see some hope for tomorrow. It’s such utter cowardice.
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I invite you, for the first and last time, to moderate yourself. You know about me and my life nothing, so keep certain comments for yourself.
The only one that hasn’t read here it’s you, because as I’ve previously said if I had to look at nuclear energy exploit from a non-Italian standpoint I would have a different position.
Here we have Berlusconi and Sun. Berlusconi is a criminal asshole, the Sun is the real true renewable energy we have so let’s exploit it instead of burying atomic waste that will be there within the aeons, will break with earthquakes and won’t be known to future generations in the distant future.
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You were warned. Now you won’t speak any more here. This isn’t your tribune, it’s my blog. End of the story.
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