Italy's biggest electricity company Enel indicated on Thursday it was ready to move into the nuclear power sector quickly if public opinion shifts in this direction.
Italy abandoned nuclear energy after a 1987 referendum, whose result was strongly influenced by the Chernobyl disaster of the previous year. In recent years a growing number of top industry figures have suggested this was a mistake.
"If the nuclear debate were to start up again in Italy, we would be in favour and interested in taking part," Enel said in a statement that coincided with a flurry of comments on Italy's hypothetical nuclear option.
"Nuclear is the top technology for producing low-cost, clean electricity, in full respect of Kyoto," Enel added, noting that Italy imports nuclear-produced electricity from France.
Nuclear energy was on many politicians' lips on Thursday after Pierferdinando Casini, leader of the centrist UDC party, called for a return to nuclear technology as a way to generate power.
"If we don't want to be left ever further behind in the modern quest to be self-sufficient energy-wise, Italy must have the courage and the strength to go back to the path it abandoned on nuclear energy," Casini said in an interview with Corriere della Sera.
In the wake of his comments several MPs in the centre-right opposition voiced similar views and even Industry Minister Pierluigi Bersani, an influential member of the centre-left government, took the same line.
"We should jump feet first into research for new generation nuclear technology," Bersani said.
ENEA, Italy's government-funded agency for research into new technology and energy, appeared to feel the same way. Its president, Luigi Paganetto, said there was an urgent need for Italy to "relaunch" its nuclear research.
The current discussion was "highly significant", he said.
In its statement on Thursday, Enel warned that Italy was far "behind" on nuclear technology because of its 20-year absence in the country.
In a bid to keep up with developments elsewhere in Europe, Enel has taken part in joint ventures in nuclear power generation in projects outside Italy.
Despite the apparent change in the wind, Italy's Green party - an ally of Premier Romano Prodi - were still firmly opposed to nuclear power as long as radioactive uranium was involved.
"There will be no polluting nuclear plants or nuclear waste in our country," said Green leader and Environment Minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, responding to Casini's comments in the press.
Cabinet Undersecretary Enrico Letta was also sceptical, saying that nuclear energy was not an immediate solution to the country's problems because building a modern power plant would take at least 12 years.
Italy currently imports 15% of its energy from France, which, according to the OECD, now uses nuclear reactors for 90% of its electricity. Germany gets 25% of its energy from nuclear and Spain 20%.
