Ireland’s Nuclear Winter
If there was any question of Nuclear Energy "leaking" onto the Irish national grid from it’s cross-border connections before, there is no doubts now. Minister Noel Dempsey and his northern counterpart Minister for Enterprise Maria Eagle have recommitted to the Single Electricity Market (SEM) which will come on line 1 November 2007 in plenty of time to cook our Christmas goose with Nuclear generated electricity.
Dempsey, who admits to a style of delegating (passing the buck) responsibility to his underlings and an ignorance of technology , has nothing on his website in relation to the agreements reported in the national papers. A bit too close to the election?
IBEC, a lobby group for business, and Forfas are both continually pushing the Nuclear Option debate to the forefront and are meeting resistance from the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) crowd who seem to think it is reasonable to purchase this power so long as they don’t see any generating plants on the Irish landscape. Sure, don’t they prosecute people who buy child porn because it supports a horrid industry? Buying Nuclear electricity is hypocritical to our policy is it not?
Fianna Fail tried to build four nuclear stations at Carnsore Point in the late 1970’s. Now they rant and rave over Sellafield all the time and just recently had their legal action thrown out of the EU court. It appears that they see no reason not to go ahead and import that same electricity? Fiona O’Malley of the PD’s said, "There is a certain hypocrisy in criticising another country for planning to build nuclear power stations, while turning a blind eye to the fact that we ourselves import nuclear-generated energy." Gee, ya think?
In the Green Party’s "Previous Generation" report on why nuclear energy doesn’t make sense for Ireland it lists an increasing need to generate additional energy; but, doesn’t seem to condemn buying it in. Yet under the SEM Agreement the ESB will be required to decrease it’s energy output (to keep market prices high is my guess) which is in direct contrast to our strategic national energy interests.
Ah sure, what’s the harm, we’ll all have a Nuclear Winter and a glowing Christmas dinner this year!
