It is time for Ireland to get real about the looming global energy crisis - that means building not just one but a cluster of nuclear power plants, argues Dr Edward Walsh
"Opposition to nuclear energy is based on irrational fear fed by Hollywood-style fiction, the Green lobbies and the media. These fears are unjustified, and nuclear energy from its start in 1952 has proved to be the safest of all energy sources.
"We must stop fretting over the minute statistical risks of cancer from chemicals or radiation. Nearly one-third of us will die of cancer anyway, mainly because we breathe air laden with that all pervasive carcinogen, oxygen...
"By all means, let us use the small input from renewables sensibly, but only one immediately available source does not cause global warming and that is nuclear energy."
These statements are made by James Lovelock, Britain's premier environmental scientist and a founder of Greenpeace. It is echoed by Sir David King, chief scientific adviser to the UK government and supported by a range of professional and scientific bodies of high standing that have studied the facts.
An unlikely alliance has emerged between the nuclear industry and many environmentalists. Finland has now a new nuclear reactor under construction. The decision was driven primarily by environmental considerations and the facts.
These facts are quite unambiguous. Nuclear reactors do not emit carbon gases and so do not contribute to global warming. Compared to other means of energy production nuclear power is safe. Death statistics reveal that energy production by hydroelectric and coal are the most dangerous, gas is safer, but nuclear is the safest of all.
Coal is one of the most lethal energy sources. Apart from its impact on global warming, large numbers of people die mining coal or subsequently from black lung disease. Last year some 6,000 died mining coal in China: five for each million tons of coal extracted.
While we should have little worry about the stability of Irish dams, the records show that hydroelectric is the most dangerous form of electrical generation. Some 200 major hydroelectric dams have failed, killing 8,000 people. But few recall these: the 1959 French Malpasset dam accident killed 421. In the Italian Vaiont dam accident of 1963, 30 million cubic metres of water swept down the Alpine valley. The villages of Longarone, Pirago, Villanova and Rivalta were wiped out, killing 2,600. Two thousand died when the Indian Machhu dam failed in 1979. The litany of forgotten hydroelectric accidents goes on.
Yet few will be unaware of the world's two major nuclear accidents: Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Neither was caused by a nuclear explosion. In both cases the problem was caused by rupture of the nuclear reactor containment vessel as a result of steam pressure.
No death nor injury occurred during the Three Mile Island accident. The one at Chernobyl was a radically different matter.
The reactor design was gravely defective and the Soviets ignored public safety by omitting the enclosures provided in all western reactors to prevent radiation leaking into the atmosphere.
Typically a western reactor is sealed in a 4- to 8-inch-thick high-tensile steel pressure vessel. About this is an additional 4ft-thick leaded-concrete enclosure. These, together with the radioactive coolant systems, are then enclosed in a further 1- to 2in-thick steel containment vessel, which in turn is enclosed in a 3ft-thick shield building.
The Chernobyl reactor lacked these vital layers of containment structures. As a result, when steam pressure caused the reactor vessel to rupture, the radioactive material that rushed outwards escaped immediately into the atmosphere. The graphite moderator went on fire, burned for nine days and the radioactive smoke particles were carried by the wind over large areas of the Soviet Union and Europe. The area within 30km of the reactor was seriously contaminated. If Chernobyl were enclosed in the same way as Three Mile Island, this would not have happened.
Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated and their lives were drastically disrupted. While the large majority of those evacuated received only minor radiation doses - less than that of a chest x-ray - this was not made know to them for two years.
The foreboding that arose from wild media reports of 10,000 to as many as 100,000 deaths, combined with a lack of information about individual health prospects, inflicted serious psychological scars. This sense of doom and uncertainty was finally brought to a conclusion only recently when the World Health Organisation, together with seven other United Nations agencies and some 100 leading scientists, established the facts related to the Chernobyl accident.
The UN report was published last year. While it shows that the accident was a human tragedy and has caused major disruption to the normal life of the region, it also made it clear that the effects on health and environment were significantly less severe than initially predicted.
Contrary to reports of thousands of deaths, the report established that a total of 56 people died from the results of nuclear radiation since the accident in 1986. Some 47 of these were emergency workers who fought the fire at the plant during the first day when radiation levels were at a peak. Most of their deaths took place within the following four months. Some 4,000 subsequently developed thyroid cancer; but the survival rate was over 99 per cent and only nine of these have died as a result of radiation.
The report, despite previous forecasts, found that there was no observed rise in the incidence of cancer amongst the general population, nor was there evidence of decrease in fertility or increase in birth defects due to radiation.
If the Chernobyl incident never occurred, some 100,000 people in the area studied could be expected to die of cancer in the normal course of events. The UN team estimate that it is possible some 4 per cent of these deaths could eventually be attributed to the Chernobyl accident.
Ireland's attitude towards nuclear energy fluctuates over the years and is much influenced by international events.
In 1968 the ESB announced plans for a 650 megawatt nuclear plant at Carnsore Point, lodged a planning application for four nuclear reactors with Wexford County Council in 1974 and contracted with Urenco for the supply of enriched uranium.
Following the oil shock of 1973 the government's commitment to nuclear energy strengthened and energy minister Des O'Malley made it clear at the 1978 Fianna Fáil ardfheis that the "Flat Earth Society" was not going to determine Ireland's future energy policy.
However, the Three Mile Island accident and the Kinsale gas find, combined with Des O'Malley's expulsion from the party, did: plans for building a nuclear power station were dropped.
Others moved ahead with their plans: today there are a total of 439 nuclear reactors in operation in 31 countries. The French nuclear programme has been the most successful. Seventy-seven per cent of France's electricity is generated by its 58 nuclear reactors. As oil prices rise, France's energy costs remain stable, providing the country with an important competitive advantage.
Despite the findings of both an OECD investigation and an Irish Government taskforce, showing that there are not major public health risks associated with nuclear activities in Cumbria, Sellafield remains a contentious issue between Dublin and London.
As a result of inflamed public concern and the resultant sticky political situation, it is now difficult for Irish policymakers to address the twin challenges of escalating oil prices and global warming as other countries are doing. But an important start has been made; a recent report of Forfás says that "although not economically feasible in the short to medium term... Ireland should consider the possibility of developing nuclear energy as a more long-term solution".
In the short term, Ireland must reduce its dependence on imported oil and gas and diversify. Bringing ashore the gas found off the Mayo coast is an immediate priority. While wind energy is not competitive without subsidy, it is wise to encourage investment in renewable energy sources- Sustainable Energy Ireland has recently announced helpful incentives.
Because of our isolated location, Ireland has weak electrical interconnection to the European grid. As a result, our system can only cope with a modest proportion of unreliable energy sources such as wind.
The planned 500-megawatt electrical interconnector across the Irish Sea to the UK grid is an important initiative and offers the possibility of increasing wind capacity. When the wind is not blowing Ireland's energy shortfall can be made up by energy imported from the UK through an interconnector. The fact that some of it may be generated by the two new reactors proposed for Sellafield provides some balance to the proposition.
In time spiralling oil costs and loss of competitiveness, combined with global-warming concerns, will see a change in Irish attitudes. Then, as the population and the media become more aware of the facts, Ireland is more likely to follow Finland's lead and build its first cluster of nuclear power plants.
• Dr Edward Walsh is the founding president of the University of Limerick. In the 1960s he directed an energy research laboratory in the US and served as an associate of the US Atomic Energy Commission Laboratory at Ames, Iowa