Nuclear Italia

The Italian government has reversed a 20 year policy against building nuclear power plants, and has announced that they plan to return to nuclear power. Unlike New Zealand's strange and fascinating moral stance, the original Italian plants were shut-down in a post-Chernobyl panic, until eventually the country's resources became stretched so far, to the point where 87% of Italy's energy is now sourced from foreign suppliers.

I'm interested in the way that New Zealanders might relate to this issue. There's certainly no shortage of debate or long term thinking, and I would hate to see Nuclear Free become an unquestionable dogma. Sure, nuclear powered submarines and aircraft carriers can get the fuck off out of our waters, I'm happy with that - but refusing to even assess the possibilities of nuclear energy is not a viable and sustainable long-term strategy if our current rate of growth and urbanization continues.

The alternative of course, is to move away from centralized models of power production, with individual buildings becoming both consumers and producers, feeding their excess electricity back onto the grid. There are also some interesting possibilities to utilize tidal power. Will this be enough to feed the growth?