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After 55 years, Italy has experienced its first electric blackout. In 1948 the power shortage was due to the consequence of World War II. Today, in peace time, the reasons are different. Some are questioning the lack of power – since for several years not a single power plant has been built. Many licences have been given but no one is under construction yet – and the blackout started at 3.30 am on a Sunday morning, when the electricity demand was very low.
Some blame the uncompleted and badly managed liberalization and privatization process of the energy sector; should this be true, I would have been a good prophet with my previous article “Market Does Not Become Electric”. Others are connecting the blackout with the abandonment of nuclear power. Let us look at this item first.
There has not been a formal decision to phase out nuclear energy. The subsequent month, after the November 1987 referendum, the Italian Parliament deliberated a “five years moratoria” for the new nuclear construction - 16 years have passed by already - and the last National Energy Plan approved (PEN 1988), asked for a development, in the frame of a wide international cooperation, of passive or inherently safe reactors design, that has been done both in USA with the prestigious Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) of the major US utilities and in Europe with EdF, Framatome and Siemens for the new European nuclear reactor design (EPR).
The decision to abandon nuclear energy has been a “political” decision, taken in the late 1980’s by Italy’s Government, with the closure of Latina and the Unified Nuclear Design (PUN), that was just started (1988), the so called “reconversion” of Alto Lazio (1989) and the final closure of Caorso and Trino Vercellese (1990). It is not worthwhile to remember that in that occasion, for Caorso and Trino Vercellese, a “passive, safe shutdown” was deliberated by the InterMinisterial Committee for Economic Planning (CIPE) on July 26th, just a week before Saddam Hussein would invade Kuwait.
Nine years later, the Industry Minister, without a formal Government’s approval, announced in December 1999 in a Press Conference the decision to proceed with the “accelerated decommissioning” of both nuclear plants, that compared with the previously approved “passive, safe shutdown”, is just the opposite choice.
The nuclear phase out is not however the prime cause of the September 27th blackout, but is an indirect cause instead. The abandon of nuclear energy has led to a very high electricity cost, because the oil and gas prices have tripled in the last five years. Our electricity bills are twice of that than in France, three times more than in Sweden and 60% more than the European average value. Consequently, Italy imports 17% as annual average of its electricity needs, while the major importing EU country after us, Spain, imports only 2%. In the night between Saturday, September 26th and Sunday September 27th, Italy, with an import of about 30%, did sacrifice the security of supply, because of economic convenience, since the energy imported costs half as much compared with our production cost.
The incident, which happened on the HV transmission lines from Switzerland, removed more than 6,000 MWe (one quarter of our need) with a consequent blackout because of a lack of sufficient, available spare power. It does not seem therefore a brilliant idea, as has been suggested, to build new HV transmission lines to further increase our import. On the contrary, we shall reduce our electricity import, one of the major causes of the power shortage. At the time of the Soviet Empire, the former URSS did impose an electricity import from Moscow to its satellite countries. We do import more.
Nuclear is not the solution to the problem but its unmotivated exclusion is at least an indirect cause of what has happened. It has been in fact the political decision to abandon it - don’t appeal to the 1987 referendum as alibi - to generate an unusual high import of electricity from abroad. Our problems shall not be solved with new gas combined cycle power plants either because of their high cost today and the required time for their construction.
What shall be done then?
Immediately interrupt the dismantling activity of our nuclear power plants, whose restart would cost 5% as compared with the “fast decommissioning” cost and could generate electricity at 12/15 US mills, while the production cost for us with new power plants would be 70 Us mills at least.
Prevent the construction of conventional power plants on our nuclear sites, laboriously licensed, in view of a nuclear revival.
Immediately set up a task force with the goal of preparing a report in 6 or 7 weeks showing time, cost and modalities for again starting the Caorso and Trino Vercellese nuclear power plants. It shall be thereafter for the Italian Government and Parliament to decide.
Designate an Extraordinary Energy Commissioner with full power for the implementation of the requested actions.
For information on purchasing reprints of this article, contact Tim Tobeck ttobeck@energycentral.com. Copyright 2010 CyberTech, Inc.
Dr Fornaciari's proposed solution to the shortage of electricity in Italy is typical of nuclear power enthusiasts: Use the government's power to mandate the adoption of a technology that the market has decided is uneconomic. A far better solution from the perspective of economics and the environment would be policies to remove existing market barriers to improved end-use efficiency, which still offer major potential gains to utilities and consumers as well. The books, Natural Capitalism, by Hawken, Lovins and Lovins, and Factor Four: Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use, by von Weizsacker et al., provide illustrations of the ways that design practices can be improved and energy markets made to work more effectively to reduce the waste of energy and other resources. In addition, the book, Small Is Profitable: The Hidden Economic Benefits of Making Electrical Resources the Right Size, by Lovins et al., details the many little-known economic advantages of small-scale distributed technologies, particularly renewables. Expensive, vulnerable central generating technologies such as nuclear power can be phased out, with net economic gains (rather than costs, as Dr Fornaciari suggests).
Kelly Taylor 11.10.03
Mr. Young presents fine-sounding references while ignoring what he does not wish to hear: Italy closed their nuclear stations by referendum, for political reasons, not economic reasons. The lesson to the rest of the world is revealed in the punchline, if you will. In Dr. Fornaciari's words, "The abandon of nuclear energy has led to a very high electricity cost, because the oil and gas prices have tripled in the last five years." If nuclear power were the white elephant that Mr. Young would have us believe, why then is French power so cheap as to be more cost-effective than Italy running their own power stations? While conservation and distributed generation are potential players in the energy consumption mix, nothing stimulates economic growth like an inexpensive, reliable baseload. Conservation, in particular, can trim back how much energy a community uses, but only temporarily. Even while the community continues to conserve, growth is the economic and productive goal. A strong conservation program can result in a lower baseline to grow from - but that growth will still increase total electricity demand. When the growth begins to match electricity supplies while all players are already conserving, you can't expect to conserve "again" and get the same benefits on the second, additional round that were freed up on the first, without significantly increasing your investment into the conservation measures. It's the principle of low-hanging fruit - once those are harvested, the next group takes more effort, in accordance with the laws of diminishing returns. You cannot conserve your way to energy independence, unless you are simultaneous prepared to punish economic growth. To my standard of living, which includes appreciation for environmental stewardship and clean air, nuclear is the most reliable, economic and healthy alternative.
Vilt Calin 11.11.03
Dr. Fornaciari congratulations for your position. As we can see from the readers comments not all of them understand the energy equation problems in this part of Europe. Infortunately usually we meet such positions at the politicians level. I am surprised that also specialists in the energy field do not understand what we learned at the beginning of the University that NPP are very good at the base of the load curve of electric sistems. Each tipe of generation have its role for the stability of the sistems and we need all of them with different percentages from a country to other. France is an island of stability of the western grid but after 2007 each country have to take care of his grid but olso of his neighbours. Please be convinced that you are on the good road ! Good luck!
Len Gould 11.11.03
Dr. Fornaciari. A well-presented prescription of the least painful option.
G. Young: The only way your presecibed solution (useage reduction) can ever happen in a manner significant enough to show on the charts without extreme central command and control is by raising the price of energy useage to a point where market economics ensure the reductions. As Dr. Fornaciari points out, Italy is already a model of conservation in the energy useage field, supporting a population of 57.7 milliom (2002) with 283.74 billion kWh consumption per year (2000) http://www.reference-guides.com/cia_world_factbook/Italy/People/Population. Thats 4.905 kwHr/person-year compared to Canada 15.665 kwHr/person-year or USA 12,904 kwHr/person-year. Imagine your lifestyle and supporting industry's electrical useage reduced by 2/3 of current.
Now compute that in Italy, >25% of that already must come from France's nuclear generators.
To these people you preach conservation and elimination of nuclear generation?
