MINISTER FOR Energy Eamon Ryan has reiterated his personal opposition to nuclear energy and has said Ireland can develop to a “100 per cent renewable power” stage in the period “post-2020”.
Speaking at NUI Galway yesterday, Mr Ryan said such renewable resources, including ocean energy, should allow Ireland to export energy supply.
The current Government target is for 40 per cent of power from renewable sources by 2020, and Mr Ryan said one of his priorities was to “reconfigure the planning system for ocean energy”. He also described yesterday’s initiative by the ESB to create 3,700 “green jobs” as “hugely significant”.
Ireland has “no experience” in nuclear power and “limited capacity for large power plants” supplied by such energy, Mr Ryan said. He was responding to questions on the issue at a discussion with academics, business representatives and local election candidates at NUI Galway’s Environmental Change Institute.
EU policy supported a more “interconnected Europe” in terms of energy supply, and “for us as a country, it will be renewables – rather than a nuclear future,” Mr Ryan said. He noted that environmentalist James Lovelock – whom he describes as “the best Earth scientist since Darwin” – did not think that nuclear power was a solution for Ireland, whereas it would be one for Britain, which has a much larger population.
Asked to comment on Ireland’s offshore fossil fuel resources and the potential for co-operating with Norway on optimum development, Mr Ryan said that one of the difficulties the State faced was in knowing “where the reserves were”. Nor did the State have the technology for deepwater drilling, and of over 130 wells drilled so far, only “three to four” had been declared commercially viable, Mr Ryan said. This “doesn’t preclude us from whatever means – talking to the Norwegians, certainly – to develop our resources.”
He said that he would like to see “synergies” between Galway’s expertise and research on the digital economy, and research on an alternative fuel economy.
He expressed support for a light rail system for Galway, and for favourable tax treatment for such an initiative. Galway had been “planned very poorly” in terms of its development and consequent pressure on transport, he said.
Also yesterday, Fianna Fáil Galway West TD Frank Fahey promised to develop Galway as a “sustainable energy zone” and as a “smart city”, attaching priority to energy efficiency, alternative energy research and “smart travel”. This would include installing a wind turbine on Mutton Island as part of the initiative, he said.
A turbine similar to that installed at Dundalk Institute of Technology could provide 60 per cent of the Mutton Island sewage treatment plant’s energy needs, Mr Fahey said.
