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Energy in Italy.

Informations regarding energy in Italy.

What is the state of energy in Italy? One of the hottest subjects which everybody speaks about each day is surely energy, because without it nothing is possible: economy and transportation would come to a halt. Every one of our daily activities unfortunately depend from some sort of energy, indispensable to make things work, produce light, heat and movement.

Each one of us feel lost if the power suddenly goes out, if the heat or air conditioning don't work, or if we don't have petrol in our cars. The growth of the prices of petrol products has created a series of chain risings which affect numerous sectors of our economy, starting from petrol and diesel fuel for our vehicles, passing to the heat, usually set in motion with gas, and finally food products which become more costly because distribution and transportation costs have risen. Unfortunately, these are the only occasions in which we seriously think about alternative energetic sources, to find and create power with other systems, independently from petrol.

The main energetic sources in Italy.

The energetic sources momentarily used in Italy are: electric power, which unfortunately doesn't meet national needs since we don't produce it sufficiently, forcing us to buy it from the confining countries; hydrocarbon energy, petrol derivates used for means of transportation and to create part of the electric power necessary to meet national needs and also for home heating as well as methane, also widely imported from foreign countries such as Russia, Algeria and the Netherlands.

Methane is one of the least polluting sources and this explains why vehicles with a methane system can travel also during traffic controlled hours, put into effect by many cities to moderate pollution. Unfortunately there still aren't many methane cars around, while there are more than 11 thousand non catalyzed cars circulating in Italy.

Alternative energy: wich are possible?

Next to the traditional energetic sources, which generate great pollution and waste of resources, there are more ecologic and renewable sources of energy. Unfortunately these still aren't used much because of the inertia caused by the multinationals who want to exploit as much as possible the products deriving from petrol and all that is induced by it. Moreover, the investments made for research are very low and, as usual, we will be reduced to think seriously about this problem only when we will have only drops of petrol left.

The possible sources of clean energy are:

Wind Power: in some places the strength of the wind can produce a good quantity of energy but the use of this type of resource requests the installation of high trestles which environmental and naturalistic associations don't approve of.

Solar Power: the easiest type of power of all the natural ones, since the sun puts it to our use every day. Here the problem is also the high cost of installation even though the government is providing incentives to those who want to install this type of solution in their private homes, but at the moment the population should be made more aware of this problem.

Nuclear energy: the production of this type of energy was abandoned in Italy after the population decided not to continue creating it, voting negatively at the referendum on Nov. 8-9, 1987 with more than l'80% of dissents. When there are accidents in the central station, this type of energy causes serious risks for the environment, such as the disastrous accident happened in Chernobyl, in Russia, where thousands of people died and the population still pays the consequences of that painful event to this day.

Energetic saving: where can it be applied?

With a bit of effort, every family and every citizen can save a lot on the bills every year. By following just a few precise rules , you will see that it's not hard to find many more Euros in your pocket at the end of the year.

Saving water: it is preferable to use showers with air mixer tap, the air added to the continuous water can reduce, without any contraindications, consumptions up to 50%; check periodically the hydro plant to fix and prevent losses; use the water flusher parsimoniously, if feasible provide your home with toilet boxes with double buttons to use less water when possible; when you can recycle the water used to wash fruit and vegetables by watering your plants in the garden or on the terrace once done with it.

Saving electric energy: one of the major sources of consumption of electric energy are our household appliances, this is why we can save a lot by using them well and buying low power ones.
For example it is good to remember to shut of the TV from the stand-by button because by leaving it on all the time it consumes a lot on a yearly basis.

The refrigerator which is always on, must be kept clean and at a temperature which is not too low, because it would be useless, and we should look for the no-freeze, low consumption models. Try not to use electric water heaters which use a lot of power.

Lighting: we should try to change our regular light bulbs with the energetic saving ones. Although they cost more when we buy them, they give us the chance to save a lot on the electric bill giving us the same light. We should also try to shut off the lights where we don't need them.

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