RECYCLING CITY

This corresponds to a positivist attitude that, thanks to the confidence in the technological advancement, sees nature and water as ductile, pliable entities.

In the first half of the twentieth century the Alps became a formidable machine for energy production; the Piave becoming one of the most artificialised rivers of Europe; SADE a world leading electrical company.

The second network location corresponds to the industrial port of Venice, located as willed by the same Volpi from 1917 onwards at Marghera, between the lagoon and the mainland, where large amounts of electricity produced in the Alps were conveyed to be consumed by the growing industrial center (Munarin 2002).

The Rise of Thermoelectric Starting in the second half of the 20th century, hydroelectric power, which had seen constant growth until then, and which before the Second World War represented the majority of energy generated and consumed in the Veneto, began to give way to a model based on the importation, refinement and application of fossil fuels. The era of hydroelectric power also saw its symbolic end with the Vajont disaster in 1963, in which a landslide on Mt. Toc resulted in the deaths of nearly 2000 people.

Porto Marghera, Fusina and the Po Delta soon became of strategic importance in generating power for large areas. Their accessibility by sea made it possible to gather large quantities of oil, and their large water reserves were ideal for cooling the installations.

During the 1990s, just seven thermoelectric power stations produced 90% of the Region’s electric energy. This energy model, based on large hydroelectric and thermoelectric power stations, enabled the Veneto to maintain total energy self-sufficiency until the year 2000.

Decline of the concentration model There are many important dates and events which at the turn of the millennium seemed to signal the progressive decline of the concentration energy model from economic, environmental and safety standpoints.

1. In response to climate change, the Kyoto protocol of 1997 mandated a conversion of the fossil fuel-based energy model. At the same time, a change in the geopolitical balance of powers and the energy crisis, resulting from the attack on the Twin Towers in 2001 and the spreading awareness that the oil peak had been reached, posed a serious challenge to dependence on fossil fuels and low cost energy, from a strategic standpoint, in addition to the economic one.

2. In Italy, nuclear energy generation ended abruptly with the referendum of 1987, held one year after the Chernobyl disaster. The four Italian nuclear power plants were shut down, and with them the country’s corresponding L IFECYCLES, EMBODIED ENERGY, INCLUSION - 31