ROME, March 3 (Xinhua) -- Italy's government has confirmed that the country will resume generating nuclear power no later than 2030.
Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, Italy's minister for environment and energy security, said the first nuclear plants will be operational before the end of 2030, business daily Il Sole 24 Ore reported on Monday.
The push for nuclear energy gained momentum after the conflict between Russia and Ukraine drove up energy prices, triggering record inflation. In February, a decree removed the last bureaucratic barriers to the transition, the daily reported.
Italy's National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan envisions nuclear power supplying between 11 percent and 22 percent of the country's energy needs by 2050.
The country previously produced nuclear power for nearly three decades before phasing it out. Following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the then-Soviet Union, Italy held a referendum in 1987 that led to the prohibition of nuclear energy. The country's last nuclear power plants were decommissioned by 1990.
A second national referendum on the issue was held in 2011, but it failed to secure enough support for a revival of nuclear energy.
