Is this Pniec the energy transition plan we needed?

On 1 July the government delivered the new integrated national energy and climate plan.Unfortunately, however, it does not represent the reality that Italy would need.

We have finally delivered our plan for the energy transition, but it is not exactly the pragmatic and realistic plan that the government shows off.Its sending to the European Commission was long awaited, after all it took a year and a half of work.We're talking about Integrated national plan on energy and climate (Pniec) which represents the main tool for planning Italian energy policy in the direction of net zero emissions, i.e climate neutrality.

The Pniec contains many ambitious promises on our energy transition, but does not explain how to get there, also because these strategies are often in contradiction with the government's latest choices, such as the law that greatly limits the installation of new photovoltaic, while it includes as strategic some technologies that can represent dangerous distractions, like the biofuels and the CO2 capture, if used to absorb superfluous fossil emissions.

What the Pniec provides, in detail

It is 491 pages in which the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security led by Gilberto Pichetto Fratin puts the idea of ​​Italy's energy transition in black and white:the bulk of clean energy production will be entrusted to renewables, like sun and wind.In particular the intermediate objective to 2030 is to reach 131 gigawatts (GW) of renewable power – with photovoltaics at 74 GW and 17 GW from wind, mainly onshore.

To date, from data from Terna, the manager of the national electricity grid, renewable power in Italy is around 30 GW of photovoltaic, just over 12 GW of wind.Added to these are the more "classic" renewables such as hydroelectric, almost 22 GW, bioenergy and geothermal, with almost 5 GW installed.

All this would then lead to a doubling.It would go from around 65 GW installed to just over 131 GW.An objective however lower than the objectives of the government itself which, with the Suitable Areas decree which identifies the areas in which it is possible to build plants, provides for 16 GW more.

The challenge is certainly arduous because all scientists insist onimportance of electrifying final consumption, both to eliminate fossil fuel combustion as much as possible and to improve energy efficiency.For Italy this challenge means going from around 310 TWh of current annual electricity consumption to an approximate doubling of demand, i.e. 700 TWh.

The big news is represented by the inclusion, for the first time, of thenuclear energy from fission, which according to the Pniec will make an initial contribution to decarbonisation from 2035 onwards.Even one is inserted small percentage of production from fusion nuclear power close to 2050.

In total, nuclear coverage will vary from a minimum of eleven percent to a maximum of 22 percent.According to plan, the inclusion of nuclear power will save up to 17 billion euros, although these savings are never justified within the 491 pages of the document.

What are the problems with this plan?

The first theme to analyze is that of times:the Pniec foresees a decarbonisation of the energy system by 2050, while the most reliable institutes in the world on the subject, such as the International Energy Agency, an organ of the OECD, asks advanced countries, such as Italy, to decarbonize the electricity system by 2040 to hope to keep alive the objective of limiting the increase in the average temperature around 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2100.

This means that the Italian plan has goals that are too far away over time, right from the start.And that's just it the first of his problems.

A joint statement of Legambiente, WWF Italia, Transport&Environment, Kyoto Club and Greenpeace Italia immediately highlighted "the lack of a specific target reduction of CO2 emissions".The five associations also add that the inclusion of nuclear power "makes this Pniec, which aimed to be more concrete and realistic, totally irrational".

In fact, the Western world in recent years has not shone for openness new nuclear power plants.The numbers are quite merciless:the only new plants under construction are in France, In the United Kingdom and in United States have monstrous delays and costs often doubled, while the new Finnish Oukiluoto plant has entered into operation, but with 14 years of delays.

“The real operation is to maintain the status quo – continues the statement – ​​because any opening to fissile nuclear technologies, which in reality have nothing new, [...] would still take much longer than those dictated by the trajectory of the transition”.And in fact even small-scale nuclear power (Smr, small nuclear reactor) is currently not producing the desired results:is NuScale, Smr's first US project, and the French project of Edf are so far failed before they started.In fact they had revealed themselves the initial estimates were wrong of low costs for SMR nuclear power, with increases of +53 percent in the US case.

Italy has other further problems to face

In addition, regarding the pragmatism invoked by the minister Picket Fratin, Italy still has to deal with the identification of a nuclear waste repository of low and medium intensity and which from 2025 should, in theory, host the return of Italian waste high intensity, legacy of our nuclear history, currently hosted by France and the United Kingdom, at the modest sum of around one billion euros per year.

It is at least since 2010 that we should have identified the suitable site and started planning the depot, but local, regional and national opposition, together with the slow process of identifying the location, stopped any progress.

How can we delude, as described in the Pniec, to start fission nuclear power plants within ten years when it was not even possible to complete the previous step of decommissioning of nuclear sites and the creation of permanent waste storage?

And while the government struggles to accelerate the installation of renewables, it remains our dependence on foreign countries is high: Al Gore, the former US vice president and for years one of the most important voices on the climate, a few days ago from Rome he harshly criticized our government for its strong dependence on gas and forclear gap between words and deeds.“Between 2020 and 2022, Italy gave 15 times more money to fossil fuels than to renewables, succumbing to the power of those companies”, thus making explicit references to the main Italian fossil fuel company.

Yet science has reiterated repeatedly that not only is the need for gas and fossil fuels in the West already decreasing, but that most of the deposits we now know they must not be exploited.

Even if this Pniec was not sent back from Europe, as happened with the previous version, does not represent the form of strategic transition based on established technologies that Italy would need.And especially:if it is not placed in coordination with the entire energy and industrial policy of the government, there is a risk that only 491 pages of words and good intentions remain only on paper.Or in pdf format, if we avoid printing it.