Here is a video clip and the text of an interview that our reporter held with Giuseppe Onufrio, Director of Greenpeace Italia. Listening to Onufrio’s words, a citizen will not be left in any doubt whatsoever: there is no future in nuclear power. The Berlusconi Government, version IV, is busy steering us completely away from the development of the kind of energy that we really need and is pushing us along this path, which runs far away from renewable energy sources, the only real opportunity we have for the next few decades. During the European elections to be held in June, we will be going back to Europe, together with renewable energy.

Extract of the interview

“Berlusconi signs this agreement with Sarkozy. But what did Sarkozy do prior to this? In order to understand the situation, we must take a few steps back. In actual fact, the French are really desperate because they don’t have any orders. What they do have however, are two construction sites, one in Finland and the other in France, in which Enel holds a 12.5% shareholding. Sarkozy had already gone to Morocco and Algeria to offer them this technology, which is already more than complicated enough even for a Country like Italy, you can only imagine for a Country with less experience than we have. Prior to the agreement with Berlusconi, Sarkozy had announced the pending construction of a third reactor at Pelmì. Now, the Italian public must always check even the tiniest of details, because it doesn’t seem “normal” when some or other government representative states that we are busy building a nuclear power station. You will note that, in the meantime, the market has become liberalised, and it should not be the Prime Minister who announces the construction of a new reactor, this should be announced by an electrical utility company. Furthermore, this announcement was made in a strange manner in France, where there is a tradition of public consultation and there is a preparatory phase during which every new nuclear plant is discussed. In this sense, it could be said that France has a fairly strong tradition of democracy and transparency and, therefore, they have always managed the nuclear power issue in a fairly “civil” way and have always held proper consultations with the Country’s population. This announcement was made outside the scope of any construction programme and was followed immediately by the signing of an agreement with Berlusconi.
The only ones that could perhaps be in the market to buy a nuclear power station are the British, who have to shut down eight of their own power stations, and those have already arrived. However, in Britain at the moment, Edef (the French version of Enel) are interfering in the energy plan by attacking the renewable energy and wind power objectives because, with these other types of energy supplies in place, there would be no room left over for nuclear power. We must all be aware of the fact that the nuclear power sector is facing a serious crisis and is being killed off not by the environmentalists, but by the market, as well as the fact that costs have risen in the past 60 years instead of dropping, this in addition to the fact that a number of major problems remain unresolved to this day, such as the disposal of nuclear waste and the questions surrounding the inherent safety of the technology. Nor has the issue of nuclear proliferation, so much so that everyone is immediately concerned when Iran starts setting up a nuclear power station, because this type of technology can easily lead to the production of a nuclear bomb, meaning that military utilisation of nuclear technology is closely linked to civil utilisation.
For 40 years France stayed out of NATO and based its military strength on this very same nuclear technology, so much so that its entire nuclear fuel cycle is under military control. France is the only Country that continues to produce Plutonium, which, as you well know, has very few civil applications but remains an essential component for manufacturing bombs. The United States ceased their Plutonium production back in 1977 when Carter was President, and never recommenced production.
We are dealing here with a technology that is in crisis and one that requires lots of money in those places with liberalized markets, and then, to top it all, it is an issue that could cause us to miss the train of renewable energy and efficiency. If ever these four reactors proposed by the Government were to become a reality, they would produce approximately 42-45 billion kW/hrs, while European objectives for the electricity sector alone amount to 50 billion more by 2020 and, if we also take efficiency into account, in other words, replacing the equipment with which we are producing electricity with more efficient equipment, the technical potential and the objectives, this would increase to some 100 billion. The potential of renewable energy sources and additional efficiency is three times that of nuclear energy and, in terms of employment, the potential is at least 10 times greater."