Letters

Meeting Ireland’s energy needs

Nuclear power must be in the energy mix

Sat May 06 2023 - 00:07

Sir, – At last, our Government has come full circle, from a fixed attention to onshore wind back to the huge off-shore energy potential. Since the Citizens’ Assembly, I have been in favour of Moneypoint as the centre of our energy policy and the obvious place for the first small nuclear reactor to replace the coal set to be used until 2025. I now read that a rapidly increasing number of shallow, fixed-bottom wind turbines are planned for the south and west coasts of Ireland. Although fixed bottom off-shore wind turbines are the most cost-effective option at present, opposition is, unsurprisingly, growing on several fronts: such as opposition from fishing boats, conservation interests and, as in onshore wind farms, the spoiling of local views. Justin Moran (Letters, May 4th) defends the fixed-bottom turbines as the only way to reach our renewable energy target by 2030.

However, I now read, belatedly, that the ESB has an ongoing plan, since 2021, to develop a wind energy hub at Moneypoint after the coal plant is shut down. Their plan is for floating turbines very much further off-shore and generating an awful lot more energy. The advantage of these deeper water turbines is access to large areas of deep ocean, with the strongest and most consistent winds, appealing to Ireland’s plans to be carbon neutral by 2050.

However, even with the planned level of renewable off-shore wind, there will still be a need for a back-up source of always available energy, and storage, which we don’t have. Thus, with public and political support, nuclear, through one of the new small modular reactors, must be in the energy mix. – Yours, etc,

ANNE BAILY,

READ MORE

Carrick-on-Suir,

Co Tipperary.