Not clear there is public appetite for nuclear energy in Ireland despite fuel crisis, junior minister says
It is “not clear” that public
opinion is in favour of removing a ban on the development of domestic
nuclear power plants for electricity in Ireland, the Dáil has been told.
Junior minister Timmy Dooley said there were no plans for the development
of nuclear power, including small modular reactors, as part of Ireland’s
electricity system. Two separate legislative bans prohibit the development
of nuclear fission for electricity generation and “would need to be
replaced as a first step,” he said.
Irish Independent 16th April 2026
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/taoiseach-insists-his-position-not-under-threat-in-any-shape-or-form-as-fianna-fail-tds-sound-out-senior-ministers-to-lead-heave-against-him/a1221611234.html
John Gibbons: I’ve changed my mind on nuclear power — we don’t need it any more
Becoming energy independent is simpler than it’s ever been — wind and solar have the potential to free us from endless energy shocks
Sat, 11 Apr, 2026 , John Gibbons, https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-41825069.html
Nuclear power would, in the future, be “too cheap to meter”. This bold prediction was made by the chair of the US Atomic Energy Commission, Lewis Strauss, in September 1954. This was at the very dawn of the age of nuclear energy and it reflected the Utopian mood of the post-war era.
Fast forward to 2026, and while nuclear is no energy silver bullet, nor has it been an abject failure. Today, just under one tenth of total world electricity production is from nuclear reactors, which have the key environmental advantage of being virtually zero carbon.
Responding to the oil shocks of the early 1970s, France invested heavily in nuclear energy. Its 56 reactors account for about two thirds of total national electrical production, and it regularly exports surplus clean electricity to its European neighbours.
None of these plants are household names, for the good reason that France has managed its fleet of nuclear reactors well and avoided any major incidents over the last half century.
Ireland also looked seriously at the nuclear option, with proposals as far back as 1968 to build four nuclear power stations. These were revived some years later following the oil shocks and in late November 1973, the Irish government approved in principle the construction of a nuclear power station, with an initial budget of £100m. Carnsore Point in Co Wexford was selected as its location.
Growing public opposition to the Carnsore project, including two well-attended protest concerts at the site in 1978 and 1979, saw the government tiptoe away from plans to build a nuclear plant, and the idea was quietly shelved.
The disastrous nuclear accident at the Chernobyl power plant in April 1986 hardened public and political opinion decisively against nuclear energy.
In Ireland, this took the form of the Electricity Regulation Act, 1999, which set out in law a national prohibition on “the use of nuclear fission for the generation of electricity”. That, it seemed, was that.
Opposition to nuclear energy has long been an article of faith among environmentalists. The anti-war movement and the green movement largely coalesced around the idea that nuclear power was both intrinsically dangerous and associated with the proliferation of nuclear weapons. These fears are not totally unfounded. Many countries have indeed developed their civilian and military nuclear programmes in tandem.
In an ideal world, we would have neither nuclear power plants nor nuclear weapons, but that’s not the world we live in. As an environmental commentator, I took the view two decades ago that the unfolding climate emergency was by far the greatest threat we collectively face, and anything that could help in the fight to decarbonise the global economy had to be taken seriously. And yes, that absolutely included nuclear energy.
This was, to put it mildly, not a popular position to adopt. Many people who strongly support climate action are also fervently anti-nuclear. In late 2012, I took part in a green event at Carnsore Point and found myself the odd man out, facing a sceptical audience and an openly hostile fellow panellist, German Green MEP Rebecca Harms.
In 2006, German chancellor Angela Merkel stated: “I will always consider it absurd to shut down technologically safe nuclear power plants that don’t emit CO2.”
Five years later, under pressure from the German Greens in the aftermath of the 2011 nuclear accident at Fukushima, Japan, the government decided to shut down its 17 nuclear power plants, and the absurd became real, as lignite, an ultra-dirty fuel, largely replaced zero carbon nuclear.
Now, the wheel has turned again. In response to the disastrous Iran war, Ireland is now looking to rethink its position on nuclear, with Taoiseach Micheál Martin expressing an open mind on nuclear energy, while noting costs and timescales make it very much a long term option — and this assumes the Irish public would ever tolerate the construction of a nuclear power plant.
Having long supported nuclear power when it was widely opposed in Ireland, I now find myself in the opposite camp. I no longer believe nuclear power can or will play any part in Ireland’s energy future, and here’s why.
First, the cost. In late 2022, Finland’s Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor went online, 12 years behind schedule and three times over budget. The final cost exceeded €11bn. This was the first new nuclear power plant built in Europe in over 15 years. At full production, the Olkiluoto plant will supply around 1.6GW of power.
Last year, more than 10 times that amount of wind power was installed across Europe, while 65GW of new solar was deployed in Europe in 2025. In total, some 80GW of new clean renewable energy was added to the European grid last year — the peak equivalent of 50 Olkiluoto nuclear plants.
What changed my mind is that the facts have changed, and changed decisively, over the last decade and more as renewable energy technologies have rapidly matured.
Wind and solar, supported by battery arrays and e-fuels, are now the cheapest, cleanest sources of energy in history. Last year, Ireland alone added 1GW of new solar capacity, meaning we now have at peak a total of 8GW of green electricity, or the equivalent of five Olkiluoto plants.
To grasp the exponential nature of renewable energy roll-out, consider that in 2004, a total of 1GW of solar was deployed globally. Last year, the same amount was added every 12 hours.
Battery storage costs have fallen by an astonishing 90% over the last decade, with no sign as yet of this downward cost curve flattening out. According to the International Energy Agency, renewable power capacity is projected to increase by 4,600GW between 2025-2030.
You would need to build literally thousands of nuclear power plants to keep pace with renewable energy, yet barely 100 have even been commissioned worldwide in the last quarter century, while others, such as in Germany, and Japan, have been shut down.
Ireland has made huge strides in renewable electricity over the last decade in particular, and we need to double down on offshore wind and solar farms to power the electrification of our entire economy and society in the turbulent years ahead. Our continued reliance on fossil fuel imports places us at the mercy of an increasingly volatile global energy marketplace.
While the world’s existing nuclear plants should be maintained, I believe new nuclear power plants have no useful role in decarbonising and achieving energy independence quickly and at scale.
Worse, Irish politicians now dallying with nuclear may only serve to undermine our critical imperative to press ahead with the rapid roll-out of renewable energy.
John Gibbons is an environmental journalist and author of The Lie of the Land: A Game Plan for Ireland in the Climate Crisis
Nuclear energy is a distant prospect – wind and solar are here now
Sceptics don’t outright deny climate change but dismiss solutions as unrealistic
Sadhbh O’Neill, Irish Times 26th Feb 2026
Recent commentary on Ireland’s energy system is a reminder that not everyone is comfortable with change.
For people unconvinced by the potential of renewable energy to provide all our energy needs, the focus of energy policy should still be on large-scale sources of generation, as it was in the glory days of the ESB when it ran everything (and it took up to 18 months to get a grid connection).
Amid nostalgia for a simpler past, there are still voices making the case that fossil fuels and nuclear energy should form the backbone of the grid. This case is made on the basis that renewables can only match demand up to a certain point due to their intermittency, low energy densities and the challenges of integrating them into the grid.
And it is always hard to make the case for energy efficiency and demand management when fossil fuels, on paper at least, are plentiful, and there is no sign yet of the big energy producers slowing down extraction or divesting from fossil energy………………………………………………..
With regard to nuclear energy, there is a lot of interest in small modular reactors (SMRs), which, at approximately 400MW generating capacity, would be much more appropriate in scale for Irish electricity needs. The problem with nuclear energy is that traditional power plants, at about 1.3GW, are too individually large for Ireland, not to mention the likelihood of a nuclear plant taking decades to secure the required approvals and get built.
The ESB in its 2025 Emerging Technology Insights report notes that SMRs remain unproven due to a lack of demonstration projects. None of the SMR projects to date will have a demonstration plant completed before 2030.
Given that we are just four years away from key climate deadlines, nuclear power is so unrealistic in the context of what we need to do right now that it might as well be irrelevant.
The SEAI Energy in Ireland 2025 report highlights that Ireland needs proven, immediate solutions to avoid missing its second carbon budget (2026–2030). Luckily for Ireland, we have abundant renewable resources, which have never been so cheap to develop.
Renewable energy costs have come down so fast and by so much that even when you factor in the grid upgrades required, in 90 per cent of the world they outcompete new fossil fuel infrastructure easily, including the US. This is because wind and solar technologies are proven, scalable and cost-competitive over the long run, making them more attractive to investors…………………………………………. https://www.irishtimes.com/environment/climate-crisis/2026/02/26/nuclear-energy-is-a-distant-prospect-wind-and-solar-are-here-now/
Ireland formally joins ICJ genocide case against Israel
Ireland is the latest country to join South Africa in attempting to hold Israel accountable at the International Court of Justice in the Hague
News Desk, JAN 7, 2025, https://thecradle.co/articles/ireland-formally-joins-icj-genocide-case-against-israel
Ireland has submitted a declaration to join South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of genocide.
“Ireland, invoking Article 63 of the Statute of the Court, filed in the Registry of the Court a declaration of intervention in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip,” or South Africa versus Israel, the ICJ said in a statement on 7 January.
Under Article 63, any state party to a convention that is under judicial consideration has the right to intervene, making the ICJ’s interpretation of that convention binding on them as well.
Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin announced in December his government would join the ICJ case.
Israel closed its embassy in Dublin in response, while the Israeli Foreign Minister, Gideon Saar, described Ireland’s Prime Minister, Simon Harris, as antisemitic.
Harris responded by saying, “You know what I think is reprehensible? Killing children, I think that’s reprehensible. You know what I think is reprehensible? Seeing the scale of civilian deaths that we’ve seen in Gaza. You know what I think is reprehensible? People are being left to starve, and humanitarian aid is not flowing.”
US-Palestinian entrepreneur and art curator Faisal Saleh said he has begun efforts to lease the closed Israeli embassy building and convert it into a Palestinian museum.
“This will be a very powerful symbolic move where Palestinian art replaces the genocidal entity representation in Ireland,” Saleh told Anadolu Ajansi on 3 January.
Israel began its war on Gaza in October 2023, placing the strip under total siege and unleashing a horrific bombing campaign targeting Palestinian civilians and Hamas fighters alike.
In December of that year, South Africa filed an application instituting proceedings against Israel, claiming its actions in Gaza were in violation of the Genocide Convention.
Several countries have since joined the case, including Nicaragua, Colombia, Libya, Mexico, Palestine, Spain, and Turkiye.
In fifteen months of war, Israeli forces have killed over 46,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, while injuring over 105,000.
The campaign has laid waste to much of the enclave, including homes, mosques, schools, hospitals, universities, agricultural land, and water infrastructure, making Gaza largely unlivable.
Israeli soldiers and politicians have declared it their goal to forcibly expel all 2.3 million Palestinians from Gaza and to build Jewish settlements on the ruins of the destroyed Palestinian cities and refugee camps.
At last – one corporate newsmedia admits there is no “cloud” – only dirty great steel structures
Stopping the great AI energy squeeze will need more than data centres
Amazon Web Services is currently rolling out €30bn of investments in
Europe amid a boom in artificial intelligence, according to Neil Morris,
its Irish head. But none of that bonanza is going to Ireland, because
Amazon officials worry about future energy constraints.
Indeed, there are reports that the company has already been rerouting some cloud activity
because of this. And while the Irish government has pledged to expand the
grid, mostly via wind farms, this is not happening fast enough to meet
demand. The water infrastructure is creaking too. Yes, you read that right:
an (in)famously wet and windy country is struggling to sustain tech with
water and wind power. There are at least four sobering lessons here. First,
this saga shows that our popular discourse around tech innovation is, at
best, limited and, at worst, delusional.
More specifically, in modern
culture we tend to talk about the internet and AI as if it they were a
purely disembodied thing (like a “cloud”). As a consequence,
politicians and voters often overlook the unglamorous physical
infrastructure that makes this “thing” work, such as data centres,
power lines and undersea cables.
But this oft-ignored hardware is essential
to the operation of our modern digital economy, and we urgently need to pay
it more respect and attention. Second, we need to realise this
infrastructure is also increasingly under strain. In recent years the
energy consumption of data centres has been fairly stable, because rising
levels of internet usage were offset by rising energy efficiency.
However, this is now changing fast: AI queries use around 10 times more energy than
existing search engines. Thus the electricity consumption of data centres
will at least double by 2026, according to the International Energy Agency
— and in the US they are expected to consume nine per cent of all
electricity by 2030. In Ireland the usage has already exploded to over a
fifth of the grid — more than households.
FT 4th Oct 2024,
https://www-ft-com.ezphost.dur.ac.uk/content/4fd66b27-f51b-4029-af3a-f5521368046f
Declassified files show NI’s future reformist PM ‘against nuclear plant in Catholic area’
The man who would become Northern Ireland’s key reformist Prime Minister
repeatedly expressed alarm at a plan to build a nuclear reactor in a
Catholic area of Tyrone, a previously secret file from the old Stormont
government reveals.
In 1950s Northern Ireland, Terence O’Neill was
Minister of Home Affairs and then Finance Minister at a time when the
unionist administration was adapting to life after the Second World War,
the new challenges of the Cold War, the extension of Clement Atlee’s
welfare reforms across the Irish Sea and the IRA border campaign.
Belfast Telegraph 28th Aug 2024
Inside Sellafield behind the razor wire gun- toting guards and blast barriers at the toxic nuclear site
The 700-acre Sellafield complex means different things to different
people. To UK authorities it is a decommissioning hub being used to
spearhead the clean-up of Britain’s early nuclear industry mistakes, made
before the issue of long-term waste disposal was a priority.
In Ireland,
about 180km away, Sellafield is mostly seen as a potential hazard, a byword
for danger. A former reprocessing site for lethal spent nuclear fuel rods,
it was also known for a now-defunct power plant that was tacked on, Calder
Hall, but this was only ever a minor part of it. Reprocessing was the main
activity.
These days, Sellafield is seen as more of a nuclear dump for the
most radioactive material from all over the UK, with work ongoing in a
100-year, £134 billion (€156 billion) decommissioning project.
Yet another view of Sellafield: in the eyes of one nuclear industry source, the
site is a “gravy train” for well-paid staff and big contractors. Sellafield Ltd, the site’s UK state-owned operator whose mission is to make it safe, spends more than £2.5 billion each year on the clean-up strategy. It is also a bustling 24-hour workplace for 11,000 people paid an
average of €91,000 each annually.
The site’s critics, including the UK academic and radioactivity adviser to the Irish State, Dr Paul Dorfman, warn that the nuclear industry tries to dazzle outsiders with glossy public
relations. Sellafield, meanwhile, says it is only trying to be honest and
open about what it does.
The company, which answers to the UK government
through the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), confirms that The
Irish Times is the first media outlet from the Republic to be granted
recent access to the site and its inner sanctum, where the most dangerous
nuclear material is handled. Thirty years after U2′s Bono landed on a
nearby beach in a Greenpeace protest, and almost 20 years after the
Republic last tried to sue the UK over its safety risks, its existential
relevance to Ireland remains.
Sellafield hasn’t gone away, you know. The battle to keep it safe goes on.
Irish Times 30th March 2024
Building Irish nuclear energy plants ‘does not make economic sense’, Eamon Ryan,Green Party leader
Irish Examiner, 24 Sept 23
Green Party leader says the construction of nuclear plants would be too expensive for a country the size of Ireland
Building nuclear energy plants in Ireland does not make economic sense and would result in people paying even higher electricity bills, Eamon Ryan has said.
The Green Party leader said constructing nuclear plants here to bolster wind and solar energy production would be too expensive for a country the size of Ireland.
It comes after Fianna Fáil MEP Billy Kelleher called on politicians and the public to take their “emotions” out of the nuclear energy debate and seriously consider building power plants here……………………….
He said there has been “an explosion” in the rollout of solar panels across the country, with 10% of energy coming from solar on some sunny days in July this year.
“Also, battery technology is improving, and long-term storage is improving. So that gives you balancing capability and also interconnection…………………………………….
Interconnector with Spain
The environment minister added that he is looking at the viability of an interconnector with Spain “so if it’s calm and not sunny in Ireland, solar from the south can be pulled up and that’s much cheaper”.
He stressed the potential Ireland has to become a world leader in sustainable energy.
“I think our issue will be probably by 2030 we’ll have a surplus of wind, about 30 terawatt hours, and how we use that surplus and store it to give us the balancing capability is going to be one of the big developments in the next 10 years,” he said……………………… https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/politics/arid-41233219.htm
Irish Republic monitoring nuclear risk as a consequence of fighting in Ukraine
International Atomic Energy Agency repeatedly expresses concern over shelling around Zaporizhzhia plant
Irish Times, Jennifer Bray, Mon Jan 9 2023
Europe’s exposure to a potential nuclear event in Ukraine is being monitored by a team of public health and Government officials as well as the State’s environmental watchdog.
The Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest, was captured by Russian forces in March, soon after their invasion of Ukraine. It repeatedly came under fire last year, prompting concerns about a possible nuclear disaster. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly expressed concerns over shelling around the site.
Health Service Executive chief risk officer Patrick Lynch told a meeting of the organisation’s audit and risk committee in October that public health officials were involved in an evaluation process around potential nuclear exposure which would require further reflection.
He advised the committee that a Government department and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are “considering the potential risk of nuclear release in Ukraine and subsequent exposure across Europe”…….
A Department of the Environment spokesman confirmed that its officials and other agencies are “closely monitoring the evolving situation in Ukraine in relation to nuclear safety implications”.
He said the EPA is “in close contact” with the IAEA, the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group and national authorities in other European countries in order “to keep a close watch on developments and to monitor any increases in exposure levels”.
The department said that the EPA has an around-the-clock radiation monitor in use………………………..
The EPA operates a radiation monitoring network for Ireland which is continuously monitoring for radioactivity in the environment and also maintains contact with radiation authorities in other countries throughout Europe.” https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2023/01/09/republic-monitoring-nuclear-risk-as-a-consequence-of-fighting-in-ukraine/
Ireland’s Environment Minister Eamon Ryan rules out nuclear power as option in transition from fossil fuel dependence
Irish Examiner, 23 May 22, Eamon Ryan, the environment minister, has ruled out nuclear power as an option in the transition from fossil fuel, despite mounting calls from environmental voices to consider it.
Mr Ryan told the Irish Examiner it would be too expensive and cumbersome for Ireland to build a nuclear industry, insisting offshore wind is a far better and less expensive bet in the fight against climate change……………….. https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40878437.html
“Ireland must take firm stance against greenwashing of EU Taxonomy” – Member of European Parliament
“Ireland must take firm stance against greenwashing of EU Taxonomy” –
Chris MacManus MEP. “The inclusion of gas and nuclear energy in the
Sustainable Finance Taxonomy would amount to greenwashing and must be
firmly opposed by the Irish government and MEPs,” said Chris MacManus,
MEP for the Midlands Northwest. “There is a very narrow political window
in which to reject this greenwashing attempt, and Ireland needs to be clear
and vocal in its opposition to the Commission’s proposal.”
Sinn Fein 25th Jan 2022
Ireland’s EU commissioner Mairead McGuinness insists that nuclear power is ”green”, amidst backlash over the EU ”taxonomy”
McGuinness insists EU move to label nuclear and gas ‘green’ based on science
Comments come amid backlash towards draft of so-called taxonomy
Naomi O’Leary Europe Correspondent, Irish Times, , Jan 4, 2022 Ireland’s EU commissioner Mairead McGuinness has insisted that a controversial plan to classify some nuclear and gas power energy as “green” for investment purposes is based on scientific advice.
It comes amid a backlash towards a draft of the so-called taxonomy, which is a labelling system for economic activities deemed to be “green” and is intended to drive investment towards achieving the European Union’s goals of carbon neutrality by 2050.
The draft was issued on New Year’s Eve, hours before a deadline to release it within 2021. The Commission has been forced to deny this was an attempt to slip the proposals out with little notice.
The deeply contentious file falls under Ms McGuinness’ brief as commissioner for financial stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union, putting the Irish former Fine Gael MEP in the hot seat as EU member states and political groups tussle over the topic.
Setting standards
The taxonomy is intended to set standards for what kind of activities businesses can present as “green”. There are plans to make it apply also to EU funds, potentially driving a flood of money towards the sectors included.
Under the draft plans, nuclear power plant investments could be labelled as green if it is a “transitional” fuel and receives a permit before 2045. Any project must include funding, plans and a site for the safe disposal of radioactive waste………
The draft proposal has been sent to member states and the European Parliament and will now be subject to discussions. It could be blocked if a qualified majority of at least 20 member states, or half the MEPs in the European Parliament, vote to oppose it.
Austria’s climate minister responded to the draft by threatening to “sue” if the plan for nuclear went ahead as described. Meanwhile, some in the nuclear industry protested the proposed tightened standards were too strict. The issue also caused discord between the Green and Social Democrat parties in Germany’s new coalition.
Ms McGuinness said in a statement to The Irish Times that the Commission’s work in the area “is based on robust, science-based criteria” and that the taxonomy regulation “gives a prominent role to scientific advice and advice from experts across the economy and civil society”………….. https://www.irishtimes.com/business/energy-and-resources/mcguinness-insists-eu-move-to-label-nuclear-and-gas-green-based-on-science-1.4768772
Ireland European Commissioner considers joining the push to classify nuclear as acceptable in the energy transition to sustainability.
McGuinness moves towards including gas and nuclear in green transition
Irish commissioner in eye of storm as member states row amid energy crisis
Irish Times, Oct 26, 2021, Naomi O’Leary Europe Correspondent . Ireland’s European Commissioner Maireád McGuinness is moving closer to classifying nuclear energy and gas as having a role to play in the transition to climate neutrality as an energy price crisis consumes the European Union.
Soaring electricity bills have made the issue politically explosive as the European Commission prepares to release the second part of its so-called taxonomy, which determines what activities are eligible for funding by green bonds, and therefore billions of euro in budget and Covid-19 stimulus cash directed towards the EU’s goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.
France has lobbied intensely for nuclear energy to be classified as green, and plans to invest massively in the sector. But the inclusion of nuclear has been fiercely resisted by other countries, including Italy and Germany, which has almost completed a planned phase-out of the fuel begun in response to the 2011 Fukushima accident.
Other member states, including Greece, have demanded that natural gas be acknowledged as a good replacement for dirtier fuels though this is abhorred as “greenwashing” by climate groups……..
The deep divisions between member states over the energy issue were evident as they met in Luxembourg for an extraordinary summit on Tuesday dedicated to addressing the electricity cost crisis, which has been spurred by dramatic increases in the price of gas due to a combination of factors including demand in Asia and tight supplies from Russia.
Ireland was among a group of nine northern member states to back a quicker shift to renewable energy, and to reject a call led by Spain and France for EU-level intervention to change how the energy market works to counter price rises.
“We’re coming into the winter and the big concern not just in Ireland but across Europe. was how do we protect people from the rising price of energy, how do we keep vulnerable people warm in their homes this winter,” Minister of State Ossian Smyth said as he left the meeting.
“In the medium term, we also need to think about what we need to do to prevent this kind of crisis from happening again. How do we avoid dependence on foreign powers or unstable areas for our supply of gas, and how can we move faster towards energy independence in clean energy sources like renewables.” https://www.irishtimes.com/business/innovation/mcguinness-moves-towards-including-gas-and-nuclear-in-green-transition-1.4711205
Nuclear power “just doesn’t make sense” for Ireland, a leading energy expert says.
Why nuclear power ”just doesn’t make sense” for Ireland, news talk, Stephen McNeice, 26 AUG 2021
Nuclear power “just doesn’t make sense” for Ireland, a leading energy expert says.
John Fitzgerald was speaking following recent fears that Ireland could face potential blackouts this winter.
Those concerns have eased now that two power generators are due to come back online in October and November, ahead of the high-demand winter season.
However, the situation has raised concerns about how the system will cope during periods when renewable sources such as wind turbines are unable to produce much power.
Those concerns have increased as more and more data centres are announced for Ireland – all of which require substantial and consistent supplies of electricity.
That has led to some questions about whether nuclear power – which, outside of safety concerns, is seen as a reliable source of energy by many countries – should be considered for Ireland.
Professor Fitzgerald – Research Affiliate at the ESRI and an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College Dublin – told The Pat Kenny Show it wouldn’t work for Ireland.
“Our generators come in what are called 400 megawatt lumps – nuclear comes in 1200 megawatt lumps.
“If you have a bloody massive nuclear generator in Ireland, you’ve got to have three gas stations puttering away and ready to go in case anything goes wrong. It just doesn’t make sense.”
rading electricity……
he suggested the current make-up of Ireland’s electricity grid does make sense.
He said: “The thing about nuclear is it’s always on, whereas with wind it’s intermittent.
“When you have a load of wind on the system, having a load of nuclear doesn’t fit – it makes more sense to put in more wires to France and Britain and trade the electricity.
For now, he said the concerns with wind energy are about what happens in periods – usually in January – when you have several weeks with low or no wind.
He explained: “You have to have alternatives so the lights don’t go off when the wind doesn’t blow.
“What the concerns were – although there are less now than they would have been two weeks ago – is there are two big gas generators which are broken.
“They’re an important part of the system, and if they didn’t come back on… then when the wind didn’t blow we’d be short of generation.”
However, he said EirGrid and its predecessors have ensured Ireland’s electricity supply has been one of the most reliable in the world.
He added: “We just need to keep them at it.” https://www.newstalk.com/news/why-nuclear-power-just-doesnt-make-sense-for-ireland-1243726
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1 June Webinar – The High Cost of Nuclear Power – Register
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Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State
PETITION: “Global Appeal to Endorse Palestinian Right of Return of Refugees”
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
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