Time to revisit the debate on nuclear energy, says Fianna Fáil MEP
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Politicians and the public must take their "emotions" out of the nuclear energy debate and seriously consider building power plants here, MEP Billy Kelleher has said.
The Cork politician has hit out at the Government for continuing to dismiss nuclear as a option, and said current laws which prohibit nuclear-powered electricity generation plants should be revisited.
"I think that we've lost ourselves in terms of having rational debates around energy, our policies are based very often on emotions, rather than on the science of energy, and how we produce energy. It's an area that we can dismiss," Mr Kelleher told the .
His call comes after a number of others, including Engineers Ireland and Eirgrid's chief executive Mark Foley, suggested that nuclear should now be considered especially in the context of our climate crisis.
Mr Kelleher has argued that we will be importing significant amounts of nuclear-generated electricity once the interconnector between Ireland and France is up and running.
"We will be importing a lot of nuclear-generated energy into Ireland in times of calmness when we don't have a wind energy ourselves. That technology is changing and I just think that rather than just having these continual emotional debates, that we actually have pragmatic debates based on the economics and the science of nuclear energy, complementing our obligations to ensure we use maximum wind energy and solar energy and other forms of clean energy as well.
"But nuclear, by any definition is a clean energy, and it should be part of the consideration."
He said more than half of EU countries now use nuclear energy and it could provide an environmentally sustainable option to power production into the future.
The production of nuclear power in Ireland was banned in 1999 by the Electricity Regulation Act.
A spokesperson for the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications said the Government has no plans to revisit the prohibition on, or explore the development of, nuclear-powered electricity generation in Ireland.
Mr Kelleher said generators are now a lot smaller with new technologies coming to the fore and the argument in favour of these types of energy is a lot stronger than the late '70s and early '80s when plans to build a plant at Carnsore Point sparked protests.
"As it stands, we actually have legislation passed by the Oireachtas which doesn't even allow us to contemplate that concern.
"I think it needs to be looked at in the overall context of where we are, our environmental obligations, how we can reduce our CO2 emissions, and how we can become a net exporter of clean energy," he said.