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Governments of Ireland and Northern Ireland are urged to move fast on renewable energy transition, and ignore calls for nuclear power

Nuclear power and climate change,   Irish Times,  19 Apr 21, Sir, – We read with real interest William Reville’s opinion piece on Ireland needing nuclear power to manage climate change (“We need nuclear power to manage climate change”, Science, April 15th).

For Ireland to go for nuclear power would require not just spending billions on the technology, but also considerable resource in setting up an independent regulator and a waste agency for dealing with the radioactive waste that comes from the nuclear fission process.

Small modular nuclear reactors are being put forward as the panacea for the nuclear industry, but there is currently no agreed design that has been approved in Europe. They would only be cost-effective if being done in bulk and such reactors have safety, emergency planning and waste issues that all need to be considered. Instead, there is a growing number of peer-reviewed academic and industry reports that show that a 100 per cent renewable energy system is feasible. Ireland has been slower than other European countries in its energy transformation, but there is growing evidence that it is moving in the right direction. With the 35th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster this month, we urge the Government in Dublin and the Northern Ireland Executive to move fast on a renewable energy transition and ignore any call for nuclear power. – Yours, etc, Cllr DAVID HEALY, Cllr KAREN McKEVITT, Co-Chairs, NFLA All Ireland, Sustainable Energy Forum, Newry.  https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/nuclear-power-and-climate-change-1.4540707

April 20, 2021 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized