Costs and benefits of relaunching nuclear energy in Italy

This paper supplies elements for assessing the costs and benefits of electronuclear energy in order to pursue three objectives: security of supply, cost reduction, and environmental sustainability. The study reached the following conclusions: 1) the use of nuclear energy increases the diversification of the energy mix and of energy suppliers, raising energy security levels, but it does not reduce Italy�s dependence on foreign energy; 2) the use of nuclear energy would not imply a reduction in power generation costs, but it would contain their volatility, with benefits in terms of decreasing uncertainty; 3) environmental impacts would differ depending on the time horizon considered: in the medium term, this technology would provide an important contribution to curbing greenhouse gas emissions; the long-term effects are more ambiguous and raise important intergenerational issues.