Italy bails on a nuclear future...

Reported fairly widely right now is the fact that the Italian government has decided not to pursue further plans for nuclear power plants, one government representative according to AFP reports saying that the plants "are not culturally acceptable at this time."

Now, it isn't like this is a huge train wreck. Italy already bailed out on nuclear power a generation ago... it shut down all its nuclear plants in a pointless act of self-immolation after the Chernobyl accident in 1986. What Italy is cancelling is the beginning of a plan they'd made to return to having some energy generated by nuclear energy.

Italy led the way with this trend back when Chernobyl happened; now, Germany will follow along after Fukushima Daiichi by shutting down all of its nuclear plants. (This certainly makes Libyan oil shipments all the more important, considering that most Libyan oil is sold to Europe.)

The only recent action topping these in total irrelevance is the action of AREVA, of France, who made a big "dog and pony show" of sending their CEO to Japan, amid many flashing bulbs and cameras, who then came away with building only a water treatment plant that anyone could have built. How is it that one of the self-described world wide leaders in nuclear power engineering comes away with less than a bid to defuel the reactors, or at least participate? Well, it probably makes sense, since the French don't have one single boiling water reactor anyway. Contaminated water is contaminated water; they can handle that.

1:40 PM Eastern Wednesday 4/20
ATOMIC POWER REVIEW