A-Infos (en) Sicilia Libertaria: The nuclear waste bullshit (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Arrè 'cu 'this bullshit about the nuclear waste repository? Again, 
again. But maybe it's the right time that we at least get rid of the 
useless discussions. And, why not, let's look at this story from a 
perspective of resistance and relaunching the struggle. But let's go in 
order. On 13 December 2023, the Ministry of the Environment and Energy 
Security (oh well) publishes on its website the list of areas suitable 
for the location of the National Repository for radioactive waste: these 
are 51 areas, distributed in 47 Municipalities, which to them once they 
are scattered across 6 different regions: Piedmont, Lazio, Basilicata, 
Puglia, Sardinia and Sicily. A first version of the National Charter of 
Suitable Areas (CNAI) was made known silently in January 2021, where 
there was talk of potentially suitable areas, identified according to 
certain criteria (scientific, geographical, environmental) by Sogin, the 
state company in charge the decommissioning of old nuclear plants and 
the safety of current low- and medium-level radioactive waste and 
high-intensity waste that Italy has so far always exported abroad. In 
all, around 78 thousand cubic meters of nuclear waste, which takes from 
a few hundred years (as if it were a short time) to thousands of years 
to decay. Since Italy officially chose not to have anything to do with 
nuclear energy, that is, with the popular referendums of 1987, the waste 
from old power plants and that of new production, deriving from 
scientific research, industry and healthcare, they continued to 
accumulate because Italy, unlike many other European countries, has 
never equipped itself with a structure to store this waste. For some 
time, however, the European Union has been pressuring individual member 
states to resolve the issue internally. And so here we are with the 
choice of mid-December by the Meloni government, always ready to portray 
itself as sovereignist and actually willing to swallow every diktat of 
the EU. An acceleration, the newspapers defined it, but in reality from 
January 2021 to December 2023 the areas that went from potential to 
suitable went from 67 to 51, and in these three years what the state has 
received is the opposition of all the places identified. Perhaps it's 
the fault of the trick used, i.e. the promise that in addition to the 
warehouse, a "technological park" would also be built (a park is now 
also used for industrial wind power plants), and so on with jobs, perks 
and compensation . Nobody believed it, or more likely the municipal 
administrations did not have the courage to present themselves to the 
populations with such toxic gifts. On the other hand, it should really 
be everyone who decides on this wonderful waste storage joke, trivially 
because its cost, 900 million euros, will be financed through the 
electricity bill. And to this must be added another potential billion of 
euros, destined, Sogin writes, for "research projects of the technology 
park, through public and private funding". Considering that in Italy 
there are no private individuals in the field of nuclear technologies 
capable of tackling projects of this kind, and that even if they existed 
they would pass on the costs of such operations to the public as do all 
the energy companies that have their infrastructure paid for by the 
states, this is a truly worrying design. Or not? The doubt arises, even 
among us in Sicily, if we consider that for example in the update of the 
suitable areas in December the places of Trapani and Calatafimi-Segesta 
remained. From the Trapani comrades and the "infiltrators" of the 
Sicilian Region we know that once again the institutions intend to 
oppose this will. So far, however, the reasons for this ostracism have 
been limited to indicating the protection of the tourist and 
agricultural prerogatives of these territories, but this appears to be a 
limited observation and exclusively focused on economic issues, while 
more significant and broader aspects such as the protection of the 
environment, the guarantee of public health and the self-determination 
of populations. There is still time to organize a broader protest which, 
in addition to opposition to waste, will trigger a new season of social 
demands. And in this case we must not forget how much good has already 
been built over the decades. Despite years of growing pressure from 
right-wing governments, public bodies such as ENEA and companies such as 
Eni, nuclear energy is still largely a minority in Italy. And this is 
due to a continuous pressure action on the part of the territorial 
committees, the environmentalist world and scientific research, which 
have always kept the level of guard high and revealed the most 
sensational distortions. Just as the issue of the waste storage itself 
has been dragging on for 30 years precisely because of the tough 
generalized opposition to what is the most classic of authoritarian 
impositions. Once the definitive area for the storage has been 
identified - it could take the whole of 2024, because the Meloni 
government is rooting for the territory of Trino, in the Piedmont area, 
where there is a Northern League mayor who, to please his masters, wants 
to make people swallow the waste who voted for it, but it would really 
be a leap of faith because there are no conditions to carry out the work 
in that territory, which not surprisingly had also been excluded by 
Sogin - the works for the construction of the depot and the park will 
have a expected to last approximately four years and then theoretically 
enter into operation by 2029. In short, the fight is still long and 
above all it can be won. "We have to find a solution, this government 
wants to do it, and will store the waste" said Environment Minister 
Fratin recently. As with the bridge over the strait, the decisive fight 
to overthrow this government and its bullshit can come from Sicily.

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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