Energy has been the engine of modern Italy, marking its economic and political course. From the first oil explorations to the rise of large national companies, passing through the nationalisations of the 1960s and the market crises, the energy sector has been intertwined with international balances, helping to define our development model. Super! retraces a century of profound transformations, recounting how Italy went from being totally dependent on imports to playing a key role in global strategies.
Alessandro Lanza analyses the crucial moments of this evolution: the ambitious vision of those who led the sector, the nationalisation of electricity, the oil shocks, the privatisations of the 1990s and the long transition towards a liberalised market, up to the most current challenges: climate change, new energy alliances, the increasingly central role of renewables and the race towards decarbonisation. Through a clear and well-documented narrative, Lanza shows how energy is not just an economic and technological issue, but a strategic node that intertwines power, geopolitics and crucial choices for our present and future.

 

Alessandro Lanza is the Executive Director of Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and Professor of Energy and Environmental Policy at the Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli (LUISS), in Rome. He has been member of the Board of Directors of the italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), President of Sotacarbo and is a member of the editorial staff of lavoce.info. He has extensive research, teaching and management experiences having held various positions in Italy and abroad over the years, working as Senior Analyst at the International Energy Agency (IEA), as Chief Economist at Eni, as CEO of Eni Corporate University and as Senior Research Fellow at the KAPSARC research center, in Saudi Arabia. Among his many significant achievements which deserve mention, he has been Leading Author at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He is a Founding Member of the Italian Association of Economists of the Environment and Natural Resources (IAE-RE) and of the Italian Society for Climate Science (SISC) and a member of the Sustainability Committee of Eurizon Capital SGR. He wrote Il cambiamento climatico (2000), Lo sviluppo sostenibile (2006) ed Energia arcobaleno. Il futuro è dell’idrogeno? (2023).