Four decades after Chernobyl, Italy's nuclear revival debate reaches Basilicata's oil country

Four decades after the Chernobyl disaster turned Italy off nuclear power, the government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is moving to revive the technology, the Associated Press reports. Rome has appointed a commissioner for new nuclear and is drafting legislation to enable small modular reactors, a shift driven by energy security concerns and climate targets.

For Basilicata, a southern region of 537,000 people that hosts Italy's largest onshore oil and gas fields in the Val d'Agri, the nuclear debate is not abstract. Extraction revenue has long sustained local budgets and employment, but environmental opposition has grown alongside national pressure to decarbonise. A reopening of the nuclear option could accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels, reshaping the economic calculus for communities that depend on petroleum royalties.

The AP notes a generational divide in Italian attitudes toward nuclear energy: older voters associate it with the 1986 disaster, while younger Italians see it as a low-carbon necessity. That fault line runs through Basilicata as well, where the regional government has wavered between defending oil revenues and exploring renewable alternatives.

According to the AP, Meloni's government has appointed a commissioner for nuclear energy and is preparing a law to regulate the construction of small modular reactors, a technology that proponents argue is safer and more flexible than conventional plants. The legislation is expected to face parliamentary debate in the coming months. Italy shuttered its last nuclear plants in 1990 following a referendum held after Chernobyl, and has since relied on imported electricity and domestic gas-fired generation.

The AP reports that the debate has re-energised a split between the two main political blocs: the centre-right coalition, which tends to support nuclear as part of an all-of-the-above energy strategy, and the centre-left and environmentalist parties, which favour renewables and energy efficiency. Italy imports roughly 40 percent of its electricity, and the European Union's green deal targets require the country to cut emissions by 55 percent by 2030.

Basilicata's economy has been shaped by the presence of Eni's Val d'Agri oil centre, which processes crude from several fields and supplies refineries across southern Italy. The region receives compensation from the state for hosting extraction, including a share of excise taxes on petrol sold nationally. Local environmental groups have long campaigned against drilling, citing air and water pollution risks, while the regional government has cited the revenue as essential for public services in a depopulating area. The nuclear revival debate adds a new variable: if the national energy mix shifts away from gas and oil, the long-term viability of Basilicata's extraction industry comes into question.

The AP story notes that Italy's nuclear ambitions remain uncertain. Small modular reactors are not yet commercially deployed at scale anywhere in the world, and any Italian plant would take at least a decade to build. Nonetheless, the government's signal that it is serious about nuclear has already drawn reactions from regional leaders across the country. From Potenza, the relevant question is whether a nuclear future would mean a faster exit from oil — and what that would mean for a region already struggling with depopulation and a narrow economic base.