Is nuclear an option for Ireland to consider?

The British government last month gave the go-ahead for an EDF-led consortium to build a nuclear power station at Hinkley Point, Somerset at a cost of some £16 billion (€19bn). When completed it will power 7 per cent of the country's homes for 60 years.

Although Ireland remains one of the EU's more staunchly anti-nuclear members, the project across the water has once again opened the debate on nuclear energy here. With one of the country's biggest coal-fired power plants, Moneypoint in Co Clare, due to reach capacity by 2025, Ireland needs to develop new ways of generating energy while adhering to EU emissions targets.

Shortly after the Hinkley Point announcement, Better Environment with Nuclear Energy (BENE) was invited by the Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications to put forward the case for nuclear energy in Ireland. It is safe, cost effective and much cleaner than non-renewable energy, Denis Duff argued. He said it also offered Ireland a means of hitting its 2020 emissions targets.

In a report published earlier this year the EPA said Ireland would fail to meet its EU obligation to reduce emissions by 20 per cent by 2020. Strong projected growth in transport and agriculture emissions will see Ireland missing targets from 2016 onwards, even in a best case scenario, according to the organisation.

BENE says the onus in Ireland on cutting national emissions will fall on the energy sector. A nuclear energy plant, they argue, would save over 5 million tonnes of CO2 a year compared to coal and over 2.5 million tonnes compared to a gas-fired plant.

Furthermore, for consumers, it would lead to a unit energy cost of about 8 cent.

Others argue emissions can be reduced through renewable energy, such as wind and wave, and importing energy from the UK via the East West interconnector. "There is no reason why we could not have [coal and peat-fired power stations] all closed within five years and rely instead on a combination of renewables, interconnection and cleaner gas-fired plants," said Green Party leader Eamon Ryan.

But BENE says renewables are unreliable for baseload energy requirements (it’s not always windy), while gas-fired plants release too much CO2, about half the amount of coal power plants. “What will it take to convince some people that renewables and gas alone will not be sufficient but that there is no alternative to nuclear energy that is currently available and sufficiently clean and affordable?” says Duff.

Regardless of the strength of the organisation’s argument, there will be no movement on nuclear as long as the Electricity Regulation Act remains as it is. Section 18 (6) of the legislation states, “an order under this section shall not provide for the use of nuclear fissions for the generations of electricity”. Unsurprisingly, BENE – which is an independent organisation made up mostly of retired experts – wants this repealed.

For others, however, the effort is a lost cause. “We face real big decisions around energy. I don’t think nuclear is one of them,” says Friends of the Earth Ireland director Oisín Coghlan. “There’s no elected politician in Ireland that is actively proposing nuclear energy. It is illegal at the moment. It’s just not going to happen because of the scale and the technical complexity and the cost.”

Large nuclear plants are notoriously expensive and taxpayers often end up subsidising them. The British government has agreed to underwrite the Hinkley Point development, a new generation plant in Finland is behind schedule and well over budget. BENE argues that smaller reactors using nuclear submarine technology would be ideal for a country like Ireland.

Small modular reactors, which can generate 180MW, would be built abroad and assembled on site, bringing costs to about €1.4 billion. BENE says they will be commercially available within the next 10 years and should be considered now as an option to replace Moneypoint.

But Ireland’s record in infrastructure doesn’t give Coghlan confidence. “Think about how we built the Luas and didn’t get it to connect,” he says. “Think about how long it’s taken to resolve the issue around incinerators, think about the controversy surrounding Shell building a refinery in Mayo and the disastrous divisive impact that’s had there. Imagine the mess we would get ourselves into if we tried to build a nuclear power station?”

He also wants to know what will happen to the waste. BENE says it would be shipped abroad for another country to handle but, as Coghlan points out, “not one country has yet built a safe repository for the long-term safe storage of the high level radioactive waste that we have to keep safe for, like, 200,000 years”.

For him the nuclear question is a distraction. In terms of tackling emissions he says Ireland should focus on reducing energy demand by addressing poorly constructed, boom-era housing stock. An Taisce, who are challenging the construction of the Hinkley Point plant in the UK High Court on grounds of a failure to consult the Irish public, agree.

“Ireland’s record on energy saving is weak, to put it very gently. Witness the hundreds of millions spent on fuel allowance each year (€211m in 2012 alone), public money which typically goes on coal, briquettes and peat burnt in open fires. A fraction of this invested in energy efficiency to enhance homes would yield overall financial savings,” a spokesman said.

But Kilkenny Labour TD and member of the Transport and Communications committee Ann Phelan doesn't want to see nuclear energy in Ireland written off entirely. She was at the anti-nuclear protests in Carnsore Point in the 1970s but now feels there should "be a debate around this whole issue". The 1970s "was a long time ago" and changes in technology and safety measures should be taken into account.

“We have to listen to arguments on all sides,” she says. “I do think we need to open a debate around this whole issue but I would remain to be convinced.”