In the heart of Tuscany the city of Grosseto has recently presented an important eco-building project, the first in Italy that will allow residents to forget completely house bills.

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Enel said in a statement released earlier today that the Smoky Hills plant in Kansas will be fully operational by the end of this year, and will become the largest wind energy installation in the Great Plains state, and one of the largest in the entire country, capable of supplying the power needs of 85,000 U.S. households.

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With escalating oil and gas costs and growing French electricity imports, Italy is changing is stance on nuclear power. The re-elected Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi promised on his campaign to recommit the country to nuclear power and an heated debate is now popping up from north to south.

The general impression is there is still strong local opposition for three main reasons: high construction costs, projected build times of one to two decades and no identifiable Italian community willing to see a nuclear reactor built in their neighborhood. Italy has also failed to resolve the issue of what to do with nuclear waste. A proposed dump in Basilicata region was shelved in 2003 after thousands of demonstrators staged road blocks, marches and hunger strikes.

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Europe is pushing to help solar power spread and Italy is reacting by going forward quickly. The country’s demand is rising even if a large part of Italians are quite doubtful about the advantages of installing solar panels on their homes. The lack of a national strategy, together with an insufficient information, is impeding the use of alternative energy and producing confusion about prices, productivity and maintenance costs.

Despite that, is very surprising what can be done locally. I recently learned about an ecological cemetery in a small town near Milan, in the north of Italy.

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