A Particular Experience: How a Nuclear Expert Became an Antinuke

Abstract

Between 1968 and 1987, I was in charge of control activities on nuclear fuel design and fabrication of all nuclear power plants of ENEL. At the same time, I attended to several cooperation agreements signed between ENEL and Euratom focused on Post Irradiated fuel Examination (PIE), which was the largest PIE program realized in Europe on power reactors. After the oil shock of 1973, my attitude toward nuclear power changed because the role of nuclear energy was not longer the one outlined in the program Atoms for Peace “to provide abundant electrical energy in the power-starved areas of the world”. On the contrary, its role become to strengthen the position of big energy companies and of the countries that controlled this new technology. So I became an antinuke. Throughout this period, I continued to carry out my control activities on ENEL nuclear fuel, until 1987 when, after the Chernobyl disaster, I decided for a moral objection, as I wrote in an official letter to ENEL, making my decision public.