EN --Manlio Dinucci -- The art of war -- The "ecological" transition to nuclear power

 

The art of war

 The "ecological" transition to nuclear power 

Manlio Dinucci

 

The Climate Clock, installed by Italian Minister Roberto Cingolani on the façade of the Ministry of Ecological Transition, has begun its countdown: there are less than 7 years before the global warming climate catastrophe. The clock is set on the forecasts of the Berlin Mcc Institute, not on the IPCC ones (UN Commission on Climate Change). It calculated that the global average temperature, which has risen by about 1 ° C since the 1750 pre-industrial level, could rise in 2050 (after three centuries) by 1.5 ° C, mainly due to CO 2 (carbon dioxide). CO2 is released into the atmosphere by human activities causing an intensification of the greenhouse effect. According to UN scientists the more intense activity of the Sun - other scientists think it is the main cause - contributes secondarily to global warming.

      Minister Cingolani was the main organizer of Milan Pre Cop 2020, during the meeting the complex scientific framework of climate change and its environmental consequences was spectacularized with catastrophic film techniques. Faced with the "scientific" prediction that in seven years the planet Earth will be overwhelmed by the climate catastrophe, the 400 young people from all over the world gathered by Cingolani in Milan, asked to close the fossil fuel industry by 2030 and that governments stop financing it right now, replacing it with green sources without CO2 emission. Minister Cingolani pledged to achieve this goal. There would actually be a way to do it, if Italy had a strategic plan to create an integrated energy system based on photovoltaic, and above all thermodynamic solar (with mirrors  concentrating the sun's rays), and on large wind farms mainly offshore (with wind turbines floating or installed on shallow waters). The innovative thermodynamic solar project, developed by Nobel Prize Carlo Rubbia, which would have made possible to produce a third of Italian electricity needs with some zero-emission solar power plants, was decimated and now this technology is used in China. The construction of offshore wind farms is hindered, so much so that there is only one in Taranto.

      However, Minister Cingolani had the "solution": nuclear power (see article by Greenpeace Italy director on the September 3 poster). Cingolani declared it in an open and polemical way when he was invited by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to Italia Viva School of Political Education. Minister Cigolani then sponsored a Conference of nuclear advocates. It is no coincidence that afterwards he met John Kerry, the US President's special envoy for climate management, who reconverted from opponent to proponent of nuclear power. Lega Leader Matteo Salvini immediately joined Cingolani and said: «A nuclear power plant in Lombardy? And what's the problem?" Therefore, the powerful nuclear lobby has also taken root in Italy, which has already achieved a first fundamental result in the EU: the Joint Research Center, commissioned by the European Commission, has included nuclear energy among the "green energy sources" supported and financed by the European Union to eliminate CO2 emissions by 2050.

      The EU is thus relaunching the nuclear industry at a time when the EU is in a deep crisis due to rising costs and technical problems. Solar power plants can produce more electricity than nuclear power plants without additional costs or dangerous emissions. Only to temporarily store the enormous amount of radioactive waste produced by EU nuclear power plants is expected to cost 420-570 billion euros. Moreover, there is the huge amount of money necessary for dismantling the plants themselves, which for the most part have reached or exceeded the age limit of 35 years becoming increasingly expensive and dangerous. Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency has authorized the discharge into the sea of over one million tons of radioactive water, accumulated in the Fukushima nuclear power plant after the 2011 accident, the result is that cancer deaths caused by the «Green energy source» will increase. 

Manlio Dinucci

(il manifesto, October 5, 2021)