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Never Knowing when to shut up!
I’m a big proponent of nuclear power and always point out to people that due to the interconnector between Ireland and Britain we already use nuclear power. So it was facinating to hear Eamonn Ryan talking about his denial of a uranium mining licence as this would be ‘hypocritical’.
Surely actually using nuclear energy is far more hypocritical than permitting the mining of uranium while campaigning against the use of the same ore?
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Dave:
Like you, I am a big supporter of nuclear power. I also like to point to hypocritical positions like those taken by people who live in fear of climate change yet believe that nuclear waste is an insurmountable problem that forces us to avoid using fission as one of the responses to global warming.
I also have to challenge those people who say that there is not enough uranium in the world to allow fission to be much more than a passing fad and then campaign to slow exploration, development and recycling of the material.
People who state that nuclear power is irrelevant to a country like Ireland because the plants are too large for the island grid also have an intellectual challenge that is demonstrated when one thinks about the sizes of the first reactors used for power - Calder Hall was only about 50 MWe and so was Shippingport. Today, submarines, icebreakers and aircraft carriers all use reactors that are considerably smaller than the conventional central station power plants and South Africa is developing the PBMR at a size that would be very appropriate for Ireland.
It is my humble opinion that some of the campaigners against nuclear power are quite logical - they see the technology as a threat to their prosperity because their prosperity is dependent on the continued use of fossil fuels. If I am not mistaken, Ireland has a substantial stake in the production of natural gas from North Sea wells, and that gas needs a nearby market for it to have any value. Perhaps that is the reason that Ryan is so anti-nuclear.
Recently uranium’s price was $240,000 per tonne. As a public servant, can Ryan really turn up his nose at that kind of money, or rather, at the taxes on that kind of money?
Actually, it is rather easy for paid public servants in general to do that nose-upturning, because the recent price of natural gas is near $4 million per uranium-tonne-equivalent, and that of petroleum, $9 million per uranium-tonne-equivalent. And both oil and gas bring in special taxes, e.g. petrol tax.
We’d have a lot more electric railways if our “servants” weren’t afraid we’d run them on uranium power, and deprive some of them of the privilege of serving.
It sounds like Mr Ryan is being honest, in that allowing prospecting with no intent of allowing mining would indeed be hypocritical.
However, he is also acting illegally (or at least irrationally) in that he appears to have made up a policy on the spot with no sign of a properly conducted scientific/economic study to base it on. Mineral extraction does involve impact but the scale of that impact and the economic benefits should also be part of the consideration. Policy based on dogma cannot win lasting support.
Sounds like a bit of a popularity stunt . I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to have a serious political debate about nuclear power. There’s one group of people who want to weigh up the actual pros of cons of nuclear, and another (probably much larger) group who, at the mere mention of the word “nuclear” just cover their ears and shout “la la la I’m not listening!!”
Sorry about the delay in this posts showing up folks, for some reason the blog software decided they were spam!