Irish Govt agency floats the case for Nuclear Power

national | environment | other press Thursday April 06, 2006 19:30 by Terence

Report suggest nuclear power in face of Peak Oil crisis

The State agency, Forfás, has warned Ireland will face a liquid fuel crisis in the next ten to 15 years and may have to develop a nuclear power station to supply its electricity needs.

This story was carried by RTE recently (2 days ago) after the recent publication of the report: "A Baseline Assessment of Ireland's Oil Dependence: Key Policy Considerations" by Forfás and as reported here: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/75287

The RTE report is interesting, in that it chose to highlight this rather small section that makes this suggestion about nuclear power, although it is controversial. It so happened though that on PrimeTIme the other evening on RTE television that the question of Ireland's dependency on imported oil and other fuels was the topic of the programme. On it were various people, including Patrica McKenna from the Green Party and they also had a so-called export from UCG(?), who very actively promoted nuclear power on the programme. Indeed he was apparently a physicst and one would think maybe qualified to talk on the subject, but that does not neccessarily follow, because physicsts like anyone else are human and can be biased. And does a physicst know about the interactions of low-level radiation and microbiology down to the fine but important detail? No. But the idea is that he is the voice of scientific 'authority' and what he says goes and anyone else is not qualified to do so.

Old readers will remember that Ireland had planned to build a nuclear power station back in the 1970s in the South East at Carnsore Pt, but was defeated by the very large and unexpected anti-nuclear campaign.

Later the ESB said they decided against a nuclear power station, because when the reactor would have to be taken offline for maintence, since the power station would have provided up to 20% to 25% of the country's power, there would have been a gap in supply during that period. That is why an electrical inter-connector with the UK is now touted as a reason why this particular problem is no longer an obstacle.

It' s is likely the pro-nuclear propaganda campaign which has clearly started will now point out that the electricity we get from the UK, is probably nuclear derived electricity and that we therefore no longer have any moral right to oppose it. And since Ireland is very unprepared for Peak Oil and are thus vulnerable to our fuels supplies being cut off (aka Russian natural gas a la Ukraine style), then that will further weaken public opinion.

The full reported story from RTE can be found at the URL below: