New law to reverse nuclear ban to be introduced to Dáil by Fianna Fáil TD

Haha! I look forward to seeing a crusty convoy heading to Carnsore Point for a restaging of the 1979 anti nuclear protest.

TIL from Wikipedia

“The British and Irish Communist Organisation, who believed nuclear power was necessary to achieve socialism in Ireland, picketed the first concert”

I’m all on for nuclear power, but not a chance would I want to see the Irish government with there civic servants build one, let alone have their buddies run it. We are absolutely shite at building infrastructure and running any form of state body. We have one of the highest GDP but the return we get from all those taxes is so fucking bad it’s beyond a joke.

Goid idea. By all accounts mini nuclear plants are been widely implemented in sweden etc. They could be ideal to power data centers which need consistency in power.

Wind farms off the west coast to capitalise on a resource we have in abundance coupled with importing power from overseas nuclear power plants in places like France would make more sense to me.

Solar on every roof.

We are too small a country to need to run our own nuclear power plant.

Also, good luck getting any NIMBY to allow one to be built near them.

Good. It’s about time a couple mini reactors like in Canada would do wonders

There is such an intense lobbying push for nuclear over the past few years, when the economic reality is that renewables are way cheaper and easier.

The only concern with exclusive focus on wind and solar is that it’s not always sunny and windy, but there are pre-existing solutions for this – including more interconnectors between countries to create an integrated European energy grid, plus hydropower and pumped storage hydroelectricity.

There’s just zero accountability in Ireland, that’s the worry if they did go ahead with it. I can just imagine the Nuclear power plant leaks toxic waste into the local river, the PAC or the O committee invites the CEO for questions but he/she declines and quits and that’s them washing their hands of any responsibility.

I’d have been delighted to see this 20 years ago but now I think there’s no point. Wind and solar have gotten so cheap and efficient that I think we’ve passed this by.

The biggest threat to nuclear power here is a slightly windy day so this is a good isea

Where is a reactor sited?

Where does the fuel come from?

Where is the waste stored?

It won’t ever happen

Get a few mini reactors going

The fuss about that Chernobyl one seems to have died down alright. And the UK must surely have finished decommissioning Sellafield by now. Here’s a chart from Wikipedia showing the cost.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chart_forecast_costs_clean_up_Sellafield_vs_non-Sellafield_from_2005.jpg

There is absolutely no argument that can show how nuclear power is cost efficient or will provide energy independence for the country.

Reactors cost a fortune at the best of times. BAM are going to make more money than they ever imagined. And the anti-nuclear lobby can rejoice in the knowledge that there won’t be a completed nuclear reactor in Ireland for decades.

Won’t happen , even if the government wanted to , people wouldnt and that would be the end of it.

Good, it’s about time Ireland joined the big boys. How can we maintain our neutrality without nukes?

As others have said, its the time horizon that is going to be the problem at this point.

With that taken into account though we will, or should, do _something_ with the turbines at Moneypoint and in a few years refits for SMRs to act as the thermal generator for old coal fired plants could be pretty viable. The turbines at Moneypoint itself are in fairly good nick and are, as I understand it, well above spec anyway.

if this country doesn’t want to be forever susceptible to external wars in order to have affordable energy it definitely should invest in nuclear, among other things.

Ireland’s likely best path is a mix.
Have wind as the backbone, with storage and interconnectors for flexibility. Nuclear could be a long term option if it becomes cost effective and fits the grid. Hydrogen can then act as a way to use excess energy, by converting surplus electricity into a storable fuel, instead of wasting it.

Brilliant. Well done to Fianna Fáil — you’re getting my vote next time, and that’s coming from a Fine Gael man. This is critical to our future, and the latest nuculer power plant designs, with passive safety interventions i.e no electricity required to stop the reaction make them totally safe.

I’m not against nuclear but it’s stupid for Ireland to have it. We have a small population with a small area. It’s extremely expensive to start up , extremely expensive to run with an infinite cost for the waste with 20% downtime which becomes more of a problem when we start depending on it for our base loads. I work in material inspection and it doesn’t use the same materials as a normal power plant, and require exotic materials we’d have to start sourcing and then finding inspectors is a nightmare. As one of those you’d be getting €300 a day on mainland Europe in bed every night but when working “foreign” the price doubles.

We’d have to import practically every part of the expertise for a generation with the costs pushed onto the consumer while still having to import fuel from another country so we wouldn’t even have energy independence. Even energy from SMRs is more expensive than wind per MWh.

I worked in Edenderry and the Serbian welders were complaining about the health and safety there so there’d need to be massive change in mentality as well.

We have so much wind and water let’s just utilise it and become world leaders in that and pave our own paths rather than looking at what is best for entirely different countries and trying to mimic them.

100,000 items on the snag list for the new hospital. If BAM get the contract I’ll be emigrating to outside the fallout zone.

I’ve seen how national projects are handled in Ireland, the last thing we need is a nuclear plant built like the children’s hospital. At least let someone competent with experience build it.