Europe retreats on nuclear power (but I don't think France will)

Just months after Italy decided to go ahead with nuclear power, the Fukushima Daiichi catastrophe has caused them to back off. Obviously I don't think that's a good idea, so I'll be curious as to what energy sources the Italians turn to for increasing energy demands in their country. However, the article indicates that the retreat may be temporary.

Italian Senate votes to halt nuclear programme

Economic Development Minister Paolo Romani said Italy would reconsider nuclear power "when Europe as a whole takes decisions shared by all countries," referring to planned "stress tests" on European nuclear power stations.

"Fukushima has shown us that major accidents are possible. I don't say that voluntarily, having said that I was and remain pro-nuclear," Romani said in a newspaper interview. "Nuclear power is not culturally acceptable at the moment."

Meanwhile in France, there are protests against nuclear power. But France is so well energized with nuclear that I don't think much will change; and besides, shutting down older, obsolete, and less-safe nuclear plants might actually not be a bad thing to do.

In France, opposition to nuclear growing

Two pieces of this article:

Environmental activists have staged demonstrations and launched hunger strikes to call for the closure of the Unit 1 reactor at the Fessenheim nuclear power plant, one of France's oldest. Built in 1977, the reactor is in eastern France about 1 mile from the German border, in an area that experiences frequent earthquakes.

and there's this:

In the aftermath of the Japanese nuclear crisis, French President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered stress tests for all French reactors. He didn't call for abandoning nuclear power, and such a move would be hard to realize: The 58 French reactors produce around 80 percent of the domestic power demand and make France an electricity exporter.

One thing this tells us about France; their carbon footprint is pretty small, collectively.