Dr. Juan Delgado: After the accident of the Chernóbyl nuclear stations, many countries decided to re-think their policy regarding nuclear energy. As you say, Italy decided after a referendum to ban nuclear energy. Nowadays, nuclear technology has progressed and it is much safer than 20 years ago. Chernobyl-type nuclear plants have been shut down. But there still a concern: nuclear waste. Nuclear energy is clean regarding carbon emissions, abundant regarding availability of resources  but there is still the issue of what to do with nuclear waste (though progress has been done). As with many problems, there is no white and black and trade-offs have to be evaluated. What is clear is that it is difficult to replace nuclear energy and decrease emissions (renewables are not an alternative since they are intermittent).

The energy of the future? There is not a single technology: we need them all, ie a portfolio of technologies. As I said it is difficult to replace nuclear energy (Italy does not produce nuclear energy but imports electricity from France which is mostly produced in nuclear plants), we need to make the most of renwables (wind, solar, photovoltaics, tidal energy), we need to develop technologies to capture the carbon produced by gas/coal/fuel-oil existing plants and we need to continue doing research to find new sources of clean and efficient energy (hydrogen?).