The head of Italian energy giant ENEL vowed Tuesday to develop a "pro-nuclear culture" nearly a quarter-century after atomic energy was banned in Italy.
"We have to work on public opinion to defeat the NIMBY (not in my backyard) syndrome," ENEL chief executive Fulvio Conti told reporters after meeting with some 400 companies interested in taking part in the reintroduction of nuclear power to Italy.
Emma Marcegaglia, head of Italy's business lobby Confindustria, who co-hosted the meeting with Conti, warned against being "seized by fear and by demagoguery, always influenced by the mind frame of elections, regional or otherwise."
Italy will hold regional elections in late March.
"This project needs to unite everyone who has an interest in it, which means every citizen," Conti said.
Nuclear power was banned in Italy after a referendum held in 1987 just months after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Early Tuesday, 10 activists from environmental pressure group Greenpeace unrolled a huge banner reading "Stop Nuclear Madness" from the Palazzo della Civilta Italiana near the venue in a Rome suburb near where Conti spoke.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced shortly after taking power in May 2008 that Italy would begin building nuclear power stations to reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil and gas supplies.
ENEL, along with France's electricity company Electricite de France, in August created the joint venture Sviluppo Nucleare Italia to build four European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) in Italy.
Their construction will represent an investment that Conti estimated at between 16 billion and 18 billion euros (23-26 billion dollars).
Italy's development minister in November played down concerns over the EPR's control system.
Italy's first nuclear plants since the ban are scheduled to be operational by 2018, and the government has set a target of producing one-quarter of its power needs through nuclear energy by 2030.
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