Sir, – Prof William Reville rightly argues that it is necessary for Ireland to develop methods of supplying electricity at times when wind and solar electricity supplies are insufficient and writes that the best solution is to install small modular nuclear reactors (“Ireland needs to bite the bullet on nuclear energy”, Science, October 6th).
While such reactors undoubtedly are safer than the large installations about which we all have read, there will continue to be a problem with the disposal of radioactive waste.
Why look at such a solution, requiring very considerable investment and undoubtedly encountering very significant opposition, when there already exist alternatives for the additional supply of energy that could be rapidly deployed?
One relatively easily established possibility is that excess electricity generated during periods of higher winds or more intense sunshine would be used to generate “green” hydrogen using electrolysis. This hydrogen would be stored and subsequently used to generate electricity when required using well-developed fuel cell technology.
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A second well-tried technology that needs to be expanded throughout the country is the use of anaerobic digestion to produce biogas (largely methane) from waste bio-materials, these including agricultural residue. This methane would be stored and then burnt to produce electricity when needed using existing power-stations (currently burning natural gas). Both sets of technologies would require significant Government investment in parallel to that required for the much-needed expansion of wind and solar facilities and the related urgent need for expansion of the electricity grid network. However, these costs would be small compared with those of even small modular nuclear reactors. – Yours, etc,
JULIAN ROSS,
(University of Limerick)
Kinvara,
Co Galway
Sir, – I welcome Prof William Reville’s article arguing that small modular reactors can be mass produced and operated safely at relatively low cost and pose relatively less risk (than the large stations of old).
In the 1980s I was a diplomat seeing to persuade the British to decommission their large nuclear reactor at Windscale, later renamed Sellafield, which had a serious accident record and posed a great danger to the Irish Sea and our littoral coast. It was decommissioned but to this day waste still presents a danger needing management, which is in place.
Public apprehensionis entirely understandable. It scuppered the government’s 1968 nuclear project at Carnonsore Point in 1968. We are, however, two generations on and it is past time to revisit modern nuclear energy given the present energy crisis. – Yours, etc,
DECLAN O’DONOVAN,
Dalkey,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – Prof William Reville writes that the “two big non-climate-warming power generation alternatives to burning fossil fuel... are wind and solar” and both are “erratic”. Therefore, other energy sources are needed and he promulgates nuclear fission.
Like the overwhelming majority of commentators, Prof Reville neglects another source of non-fossil energy that is abundant and is as regular as clockwork: tidal power.
Harnessing our estuaries and bays makes more environmental sense than destroying fragile upland bogs and coasts with gigantic wind turbines that carry prohibitive costs in ecological and financial terms, and then vastly underperform.
Tidal energy, on the other hand, can be harnessed in relatively unobtrusive ways as proved in the SeaGen project at Strangford Lough.
Our tidal river estuaries – Shannon, Foyle, etc – could become the source of plentiful non-fossil energy for the populous communities in their catchments. Tides offer cheap, plentiful energy. With two highs and two lows daily, these vast surges of energy around our coasts could power our island. Yet invariably, tidal energy is ignored in commentary on alternative and natural energy sources.
Time is running out for our planet’s future.
Can we continue to ignore the ancient proverbial advice that “time and tide wait for none”? – Yours, etc,
DARACH MacDONALD,
Derry.