There are two good reasons for building a nuclear plant, it would replace Moneypoint, and we could expand the use of electricity to power the railways. If CO2 emissions are as big a problem as we are told, its part of the solution, stamping your feet and saying its not an option solves nothing.
If engineers were wrong as often as economists, would anyone fly aeroplanes?
The above should be in a grid format with Column A "In Government"Originally Posted by pluralist
and Column B " In opposition"
Mammy, get the hammer there's a fly on daddy's head.
"A true green"? What is that? I really don't know now, so I avoid the term, except perhaps to challenge those who claim it as a badge of honour. Is John Gormley a true green? Is Joschka Fischer?
Lovelock is very old now. Some of us become unreliable in old age.
I would have called Petra Kelly a true green. She pretty much defined the term for me and a lot of others. Words lose their meaning...
Moneypoint has been a bad polluter, apart from the CO2 emissions. I've heard that they're putting scrubbers on the chimneys now, to deal with the pollution. Can anyone confirm that?
What sort of back-up generator do you envisage for Ireland's nuclear age?
Electrify the railways? Give us some costings please. And while you're at it, consider how much pollution the diesel trains cause. (Relatively little.)
15 Jan 2001 -- Fine Gael pledged to end fluoridation because of "serious health concerns".
Not by him/her. My point is that soubresauts has done nothing but play the political identity card on this thread. So far it's been "Of course we're opposed to nuclear power, we're Greens". He/she's then ************************ed on about greens in government and the nature of being green. S then somehow expects everyone to agree on an issue on the basis of what an ideology ties in to. The post immediately before mine is the first post in which s actually deals with the nuclear issue, as opposed to the politics.
Incidentally, I'd encourage people to read through the link David posted. So far it's very interesting.
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The 'upper lake' there is actually a reservoir. There's no particular reason why either lake needs to be natural other than to save the cost of digging it.
I see that John McCain is building his energy plan around more nuclear plants.
And yesterday morning I read that even the resident Green We-Are-All-Going-To-Die-Soon columnist in the Guardian, George Monbiot said:
(discussing the building of new coal fired plants in the UK)"I have now reached the point at which I no longer care whether or not the answer is nuclear."
I realise we will likely plump for 'the Irish Solution for an Irish Problem' and buy (likely nuclear) energy from UK or France through an interconnector, but in light of George Monbiot's views, are there any more thoughts on the matter?
Economic Left/Right: -3.13; Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.64
“University politics are so vicious, precisely because the stakes are so small.” Henry Kissinger
hi Stiofan I am responding to your request on Nuclear.I do not support Ireland endorsing Nuclear as a form of energy generation. Morally and ethically, I cannot support buying it as this in turn supports the nuclear industry. I favour our fast-tracking financial support for other alternaives such as tidal, wind, solar.
We already buy it, indirectly from the UK. Electricity is Electricity. There is no way of distinguishing what source it comes from once it is in the grid. There are mooted plans for another interconnector with France, 80% of it's electricity is supplied by nuclear energy.
What Monbiot was on about though was that while better renewable technology is in the pipeline, nuclear technology exists now. He said:
We can no longer afford any rigid principle but one: that the harm done to people living now and in the future must be minimised by the most effective means, whatever they might be.
Economic Left/Right: -3.13; Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.64
“University politics are so vicious, precisely because the stakes are so small.” Henry Kissinger
[quote=Stíofán]We already buy it, indirectly from the UK. Electricity is Electricity. There is no way of distinguishing what source it comes from once it is in the grid. There are mooted plans for another interconnector with France, 80% of it's electricity is supplied by nuclear energy.
What Monbiot was on about though was that while better renewable technology is in the pipeline, nuclear technology exists now. He said:
[/quote:30f5tdju]We can no longer afford any rigid principle but one: that the harm done to people living now and in the future must be minimised by the most effective means, whatever they might be.
He's entirely right. The problems created by nuclear power can equally well be solved a century from now. The problem of climate change needs to have been solved already, and every year makes it worse.
Never let the best be the enemy of the good.
[quote=ibis]He's entirely right. The problems created by nuclear power can equally well be solved a century from now. The problem of climate change needs to have been solved already, and every year makes it worse.[/quote:3m22kwk6]We already buy it, indirectly from the UK. Electricity is Electricity. There is no way of distinguishing what source it comes from once it is in the grid. There are mooted plans for another interconnector with France, 80% of it's electricity is supplied by nuclear energy.
What Monbiot was on about though was that while better renewable technology is in the pipeline, nuclear technology exists now. He said:
We can no longer afford any rigid principle but one: that the harm done to people living now and in the future must be minimised by the most effective means, whatever they might be.
No argument here really, but I do firmly believe that future generations will curse us for replacing one expensive, destructive, damaging form of non renewable power with another, they will look back at us with incredulous disbelief. I also do not have faith that nuclear will perform as its advocate claim - we heard the claims before and they were proven fictional, whether it be costs of construction, costs of maintenance, ease of implementation, safety standards, etc etc. We're facing armaggedon so I'd be open to practically anything, but I'd still rather see a colossal cut in energy consumption (be it voluntary or imposed, by government or economic reality) with the attendant economic consequences, than I would nuclear power plants being built across the planet, not delivering for 15 years and then having problem after problem like their predecessors have.
"Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable."
John Galbraith
Economic Left/Right:-8.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian:-6.97
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