YES Jerry Shanahansays nuclear power can be good for the environment and the economy and a debate is needed NO Oisín Coghlansays nuclear power is an expensive distraction from the real challenges facing us online.
Wind and wave power have a part to play, as does clean coal, and so too should nuclear energy. After all, the Programme for Government envisages 30 per cent of energy coming from renewables by 2020, so where will the other 70 per cent come from? There is no doubt that nuclear energy is associated, in the public mind, with risk. Chernobyl was a catastrophe that no society should have to bear. And yet, in all the other nuclear reactors operational around the world over the past 50 years, in 71 countries from Algeria to Vietnam, there has not been one other death. We need to put the risks in context, and view them alongside, for example, our acceptance of the hundreds of thousands of deaths caused in the same period by road transport.
The nuclear issue has a history in Ireland which is born of both government and public opposition to Sellafield; of our humane approach to the Chernobyl survivors; and of Carnsore Point being considered when cold war rhetoric of "evil empires" and "star wars" was raging. We now need a forward-looking and realistic assessment of how we produce the energy that fuels our lives and our economy.
We know that use of oil in its current form is slowly killing our environment and that reserves of oil and gas are rapidly disappearing. Nuclear power produces minimal carbon dioxide emissions. Indeed, there is a strong argument in favour of nuclear energy being adopted as the greenest alternative source of future energy, producing less carbon emissions than wind power. I believe it is unreasonable to stifle debate on an energy source which produces minimal carbon emissions.
If the rejection of nuclear is based on the morality of the issue, then how can we reconcile the fact that we are already using nuclear-generated energy through interconnection to Britain and Europe, and that this is viewed as increasingly essential if we are not to be plunged into "energy poverty" and rationing. Wind in my view is volatile, not secure, and there are no plans for storage. At peak demand in the system last December, at 5100 megawatts (MW), wind should have produced 744 MW but produced just 11 MW. This is neither secure nor sustainable in a modern economy. Were it not for fixed capacity back-up from ESB plants, there could have been serious blackouts.
These issues need serious consideration now, as the lead-time to build a nuclear plant in Ireland would be significant: 20 years, perhaps. Yet, under legislation currently in force, nuclear energy is specifically prohibited in Ireland. This prohibition was further underpinned as policy in the energy White Paper published by former minister Noel Dempsey earlier this year. His successor, Eamon Ryan, has accepted that the debate should be heard, and based on facts rather than emotion.
It must also be considered that nuclear energy carries with it real economic benefits. It allows for the production of a large amount of power in a cheap way. As part of Amicus' review of alternatives to oil and gas, we argued that the cost of producing nuclear energy is lower than the price of all other sources contributing to the European grid. According to OECD figures, the costs of nuclear production lie between €4 and €8 per megawatt hour, whereas coal and gas fuel respectively cost between €13 and €26 and between €19 and €42. Moreover, nuclear fuel has a superior energetic potential; one kilogram of uranium produces as much energy as 1,500 tons of coal.
Nuclear power production, if well managed, leads to a healthier environment, produces cheaper fuel bills for home and industry, and puts Ireland in control of its own energy future. Of course there are downsides. The capital cost of nuclear is higher. The right size nuclear plant for Ireland is in the region of 600-800 MW. The capital cost of such a nuclear plant would be of the order of €0.7-1.2 billion. Bear in mind, however, that we have set aside €270 million for carbon taxes this year alone. There are savings here which could be re-directed The nuclear question cannot be filed away for another 20 years, marked as "too difficult or unpopular". There has to be an open debate leading to rational conclusions. It is our belief that this debate needs to start immediately. It should be co-ordinated by a new National Energy Agency, with appropriate terms of reference that include a long term view of Ireland's overall energy needs. Responses need to be examined and proven to be valid or dispelled. All views need to be heard and all aspects including ownership, cost, impact, health and safety, and regulation need to be considered in making the correct policy decisions.
Jerry Shanahan is national officer of trade union Amicus (Unite)
Amicus and Friends of the Earth agree that Ireland must cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 3 per cent a year if we are to play our part in tackling climate change. Amicus has put down a motion to that effect for debate at the ICTU biennial conference next month. And the new Government has now committed itself to this annual reduction target in the Programme for Government. At issue then is what role, if any, nuclear power has to play in helping Ireland rise to this challenge.
Such is the threat from runaway climate change that if I thought nuclear power offered a solution I would jettison 30 years of opposition and advocate its adoption in Ireland. But the nuclear path would offer too little, too late, at too high a price and too high a risk.
At the very least it would take 15 years to build and bring on line a nuclear power plant in Ireland. Before then we need to cut our greenhouse gas emissions by a third to do our fair share to prevent climate change running out of control. And nuclear energy offers no solution for transport, the fastest growing source of Irish emissions, or for heating. Between them, transport and heating account for two-thirds of our energy use.
Proponents of nuclear power claim it is a "zero-carbon" source of energy. This is very wide of the mark when you take into account the mining, transport and enrichment of uranium (itself a finite resource, like oil), the construction of the plant using huge amounts of carbon-intensive cement, the decommissioning of the plant and the long-term storage of the radioactive waste. If Britain, for example, were to double its nuclear capacity, and even Tony Blair is only advocating maintaining it, their emissions would fall by just 8 per cent.
Nuclear power is also hugely expensive. We are told we need a competitive energy market. But nuclear power is never viable without direct or indirect subsidies from the state. From research and development to price subsidy, decommissioning and waste storage, not to mention the cost of accidents, it is invariably the taxpayer who picks up the tab. The price of decommissioning the UK's 23 power plants is now reckoned to be over €100 billion.
It is not just the direct cost of nuclear that we must consider but also the opportunity cost. A euro spent on nuclear power is a euro not spent on energy efficiency or renewables. Research by the Rocky Mountain Institute found that every euro spent on new nuclear power could save 10 times more emissions if it was invested in energy conservation measures. The cheapest and quickest contribution to security of supply is to reduce demand by cutting waste. The European Commission calculates we can reduce energy demand in this way by 20 per cent by 2020, at zero net cost. For political leaders looking for the grand gesture, announcing the construction of a nuclear plant may appear attractive, but it would be much more heroic and productive to declare that we will lag every attic and triple-glaze every window. The new government's commitment of €100 million for insulation grants is a welcome step. What we need is a programme on the scale of the conversion of Dublin to natural gas in the 1980s.
Ireland is rich in the natural resources of the post-carbon era: wind, wave, tide, biomass. Even solar power has significant potential. Investment and research and development will pay dividends for private entrepreneurs and public policy. The most immediate risk with nuclear is that the mere possibility of building a plant will divert human and financial resources, and public and political attention, away from the really significant opportunities. Ireland does not need nuclear power, rather we need a Manhattan project for renewables.
The experience of Finland is a cautionary tale for those proposing or considering nuclear power in Ireland. The Finnish parliament made the decision to build a nuclear plant in 2001 with a promised completion date of 2009. As a result, the promotion of renewables stalled. Plans for carbon taxation and energy efficiency measures, promised in a 2001 climate strategy, have not been implemented. Carbon emissions are now rising again, and the nuclear plant is already two years behind schedule and €700 million over budget.
And let us not forget that no country has yet developed a repository for the long-term storage of the high-level radioactive waste. Waste that has to be kept safe, without leaks, for over 200,000 years, twice as long as homo sapiens have been on Earth.
So, by all means let us have a debate on nuclear power. But let's keep it short and to the point. Otherwise it could prove a disastrous distraction from the path to a low-carbon future.
Oisín Coghlan is director of Friends of the Earth
Yes. In our system, elections for government are not single issue referendums but we had a de facto one on hospital co-location, since the opposition basically offered the same platform as Fianna Fáil/PDs on everything else. And what did we find? Mary Harney, the person most identified with the policy, gets returned to power, Fianna Fáil came out strongly to say that the policy was "FF policy" and they're back in power, a whole slew of anti co-location hospital independents lost their seats, the Fine Gael spokesman on health lost his seat despite a FG surge (which was for other reasons), and Labour lost a seat. The people have spoken on this one. So full steam ahead.
Owen, United States
The vested interests in the medical profession are squealing about co-location, because they want the existing absurd situation to continue. At present, consultants use our public facilities for personal profit, by using publicly funded beds, nursing staff and all the range of hospital facilities and premises. This is plainly absurd, and a shocking abuse of public funds. Secondly, we are repeatedly told that we lack enough hospital beds. This is an opportunity to create large numbers of beds, which will absorb at least 1,000 private patients, and take them out of the public system. Thirdly, it is grossly cynical for rich consultants to pretend to be hardened socialists, and to say that private hospitals are for the rich. They know well that these hospitals are not for the rich alone. Half the population - ordinary folk like me - have private health insurance and are potential users of private hospitals.
Michael, Ireland
I am tempted to vote in favour of co-location, as a means to accelerate the separation of public and private medicine in Ireland. Private provision would in time become unaffordable for all but the wealthy, and we might then see a public willing to invest their tax in a decent public system. If you can't afford €5,000-plus per year health insurance, you're not really in the market for private health care. The vast majority of the privately insured in Ireland could not afford the real cost of private healthcare. Insurance is cheap in Ireland because the real cost of private provision is heavily subsidised by the public system.
Co-location will bring with it an end of the public subsidy of infrastructure, and with that the real costs of private healthcare will emerge.
There is a view that this would be no bad thing, in the long run. However, on balance I vote no, because there are other ways to arrive at a decent public system, and the capacity for the private sector to bring about private medicine is always there, and does not need co-location subsidy if it is a viable sector. Co-location is another M50 bridge deal.
Stephen, Ireland
It's clear that co-location, as the pet project of Mary Harney, is more about Progressive Democrat ideology than it is about health care. Ms Harney will not be happy until she has dismantled all forms of publicly-funded infrastructure and handed it over to big business - whatever the cost to the public. The evidence does not back up her claims about co-location. It is immoral for her to use taxpayers money to subsidise this scheme. Why should the leader of a party that is so unpopular be in a position to further damage our healthcare system?
Miriam Cotton, Ireland
I don't see the economic benefit to the public in gifting their asset and potential of a site to the private sector. Why not have public rest/nursing homes on this land and free up beds in this way by easy transfer to this type of hospital, leaving the public facilities to become more efficient and free up beds.
Cork view, Ireland