Europe urged to raise nuclear capacity

Europe needs to increase its nuclear power capacity substantially to relieve its overdependence on gas, the chief executive of Edison has warned.

Umberto Quadrino, head of Italy’s second-largest utility, said there was serious trouble looming in European power supply. “If you look at the supply of gas to Europe over the next 15 years, we have to be scared.”
Italy banned nuclear power generation after a referendum to close the country’s last operating reactors in the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. It is the only member of the Group of Eight leading industrial nations without nuclear power and the world’s largest net importer of electricity, according to the World Nuclear Association.

Mr Quadrino’s comments add to calls from the energy sector to take action to resolve Europe’s gas requirements.

Paolo Scaroni, chief executive of Eni, Italy’s largest oil company, said last month that Europe was “sleepwalking” into a “staggering” dependence on imported gas.

Mr Quadrino said Europe would need to double its gas imports between now and 2020 as its own production, principally in northern Europe, tailed off and demand escalated.

Gas imports – 45 per cent of the 560bn cubic metres of gas needed a year – would need to expand to 500bn cu m on their own or 70 per cent of projected European demand in 2020.

Meanwhile, the extra supplies of gas had to come, he said, from “troublesome countries” such as Iran, Iraq and Turkmenistan.

Financial Times