Gianluca Artizzu, CEO of Sogin, spoke at the conference organized by the League entitled: “Sustainable nuclear power: Italy starts again!”. In his speech he spoke of the activities of Sogin and the sites of Caorso, Garigliano, Trino and Latina.
In these hours, the local Lazio press is reporting shock titles regarding the Latina plant, according to which it would still be in activity and nominated to become a site for a possible future relaunch.
To dismantle you have to build, in nuclear it is so. It does not mean putting everything on yellow bins and abandoning them on green meadows. Dismantling means confining to the biosphere and human activities,
He declared Sogin’s number one during the Milan conference. And we rejoice, given that it is precisely the Italian State Company expert in decommissioning and containment of radioactive waste, and that – according to Federcontribuenti – costs in bills € 3.7 billion to Italians.
Sogin inherited four nuclear power plants from Enel and five (indeed, 4+1) centers for the manufacture and processing of nuclear fuel. The four Enel plants were in perfect condition, except that of Garigliano, stopped in advance.
The Garigliano plant was stopped in 1982, following the terrible earthquake that hit Irpinia. Evidently, already at the time (and long before Chernobyl) considerations had been made regarding the safety (and repair costs) of the production site.
The first sin of nuclear is not to make it work. Let’s think about the Caorso plant: he has operated for less than five years. Today, if we had not stopped him with the referendum of the time, we would be discussing the extension of his exercise at 80 years old.
The Caorso plant saw the construction work in 1970 start (just to have a picture: that of Fukushima dates back to 1967). We are therefore talking about a technology of 55 years ago.
The slags are only those with high activity, that is, about 5-6% of the irradiated fuel. The fuel is not exhausted: with current technologies it can be reprooked only once, after which neutronic poisons are generated. With fourth generation technologies, it can be reproached several times.
We always support research, because its repercussions are unpredictable. But if we really have to wait for developments in the nuclear sector, we like to hope that the merger will arrive soon.
As for decommissioning, we accuse us of being slow and expensive. But let’s cost a lot if The plants are not made to work first. If, on the other hand, the plants operate, the necessary funds are set aside. Enel provided us with a equipment for three plants: Latina, Garigliano and Trino. He could not do it for Caorso, because nothing had been set aside there.
It is on these statements that the local press of the Borgo Sabotino area has arisen. But it is unthinkable to believe that a site in decommissioning is not active: precisely because the dismantling, containment and restoration of safety are very delicate.
Subsequently, Sogin issued a note in which he says:
«We dismantle the plants, not the sites. These have been designed and maintained as sites to host a nuclear power plant and are the natural destination for a future new system ».
We thank Sogin for this self -acting. And there will be no one if, by virtue of what happened in Fukushima, we will consider the Latina site a little less suitable, given its proximity to the sea, 1.25 km and about 300 km from the Marsili submarine volcano.
The seismologist Enzo Boschi, former president of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (Ingv), said about the volcano
Our latest research shows that the volcano is not structurally solid, its walls are fragile, the magmatic chamber is considerable. All this tells us that the volcano is active and could eruption at any time.
The failure of the walls would move millions of cubic meters of material, which would be able to generate a wave of great power. The clues collected are now precise, but forecasts cannot be made. The risk is real and difficult to evaluate. What is needed is a continuous monitoring system, to ensure reliability
