Riqualifying nuclear territories. The debate on nuclear power plants localization in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s

Abstract

The article analyzes the debates that accompanied the project to build a second nuclear power plant in Piedmont between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s. In particular, it examines the relationship between the government, the public utility company Enel, the Region, the municipalities involved, and the local population. It pays particular attention to the strategies implemented by the Piedmont Region to mitigate the forms of opposition present in the Vercelli area, through the involvement of the University and the Polytechnic of Turin in carrying out an interdisciplinary study aimed at recovering and redeveloping the grange, i.e., the farmhouses used since the Middle Ages for rice cultivation, transforming them into temporary housing for workers involved in the construction of the power plant. From a methodological point of view, this essay draws on studies focusing on the territorial and social dimensions of energy, which in recent years have been the focus of a growing number of studies.