Italy’s Experience in the Decommissioning of Fuel Cycle Plants: The historian's Perspective

Italy represents a unique case of a country that invested heavily in the development of nuclear power before abandoning outright this energy source in 1987. Drawing on uncatalogued original documents of the nuclear authority of the time, this contribution aims at exploring from a historical-archivistic perspective how Italy failed in dealing with its nuclear heritage, turning it in a hybrid element of its own environment. The focus is on fuel cycle facilities: they were self-contained, small plants whose decommissioning was deemed as less troublesome compared to the one of the larger power stations.

A first phase, from 1987 to 1995, was characterised by deferred decommissioning (rather, ‘mothballing’) in the context of the striking absence of any comprehensive strategy. Thus, a sector that was cash-starved and hit by a massive brain-drain was barely able to provide for radiological safety and to conduct episodic interventions. In March 1995 a new law on ionising radiations implemented in the national legislation a 15-year backlog of Euratom regulations. The law defined decommissioning as a string of actions eventually leading nuclear sites to greenfield status. This implied a fundamental strategic choice. By 1999 the government had elaborated a white paper that – drawing on NEA cooperation and notably Greifswald decommissioning programme – advocated the adoption of early decommissioning. Mixing ethical principles with reasons of expediency, the white paper set a 20-year target to attain the greenfield status.

The strategy assumed the early availability of a national waste repository – an issue repeatedly dubbed as ‘undelayable’ since mid-1970s. The failure in siting the national repository, till now, represented a major setback. Moreover, documents further reveal a very complex situation at the sites, with an awkward catalogue of wastes largely unconditioned and in a variety of physical forms and radiological activity, though individually in relatively small quantity. This was the outcome of false starts, technical repentance and domestic infighting over the past nuclear programme. While dealing with the fuel fabrication plant in Bosco Marengo might be comparably easier, the two pilot reprocessing lines in Saluggia and Trisaia turned out an insurmountable obstacle, with a jumble of technical, legal and public consent troubles which the documents help to sort out.