Italy to bring back nuclear power after 40 years - mining.com.au

Italy has decided to reverse its 40-year-old ban on nuclear power and bring nuclear generation back into its energy portfolio. The decision reflects a shift in European energy policy toward firming up grid reliability and meeting climate targets without the emissions of fossil fuels.

Where this fits

Italy's reversal is a hard signal that even nations deep in the renewables transition are discovering the cost and resilience gap. A grid weighted toward solar and wind cannot be reliably firmed by weather-dependent sources alone. The move away from an ideological anti-nuclear stance toward engineering reality validates the core Energy Realism premise: firm, dispatchable power is not optional infrastructure, it is the foundation. Italy's choice also reflects a sovereignty imperative: dependence on gas imports and battery supply chains tied to China has become a strategic liability, not a preference.

What it means

For Australia, Italy's reckoning carries two warnings. First, the cost and timeline of a renewables-plus-storage grid grow sharper every year as more grids attempt it; Italy faces decades of transmission buildout and gas-plant retention to manage weather volatility while waiting for battery storage to mature. Second, Australia has taken the opposite path, enshrining a nuclear ban while racing toward the same Chinese supply-chain dependence Italy now wants to escape. We are building intermittent generation on a materials foundation owned by a strategic rival, while legal prohibition forecloses the one firm, low-emission, low-material alternative that does not require that dependence. Italy chose nuclear. Australia chose neither coal nor nuclear, which leaves only gas and Chinese batteries as the firming strategy. That is not energy security.