Madam, – In their Opinion piece (March 29th), David Sowby and Frank Turvey suggest a certain logical lesson to be learned from the unfolding nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan: if we do not site nuclear power plants in earthquake zones and along coasts that are susceptible to tsunami, all will be right with going nuclear.
Let me suggest a better syllogism: 1. The disaster resulted from the loss of electricity supply coupled with the loss of backup power from diesel generators; 2. Lots of events can cause loss of electricity, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, interruptions to the electric grid thousands of miles away (as happened in the northeast US a number of years ago) and backup power systems can also be lost from these or other events at the same time (gas explosion from flooding). Ergo, disasters involving nuclear facilities have many potential causes (and catastrophic consequences).
Moreover, the disasters at Windscale in 1957, at Three Mile Island in 1979, and Chernobyl in 1985 all involved operator errors and not external weather events. Shall we simply instruct operators to be more careful to avoid future nuclear disasters?
Anybody out there feel confident in that solution? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – In his response to an Opinion piece (David Sowby and Frank Turvey, March 29th) that had called for an expert group to “examine, at an early date, the potential and practicality of nuclear energy”, Richard More O’Ferrall (March 30th) states “Once again, they fail to address some of the main reasons why nuclear energy is a non-starter.”
Surely the purpose of the proposed examination is to look at the issues? Is nuclear power to be dismissed without examination? Chief among his issues seems to be “the prohibitive costs”. Why should it be more costly to build a nuclear power station in Ireland than anywhere else, one wonders? There is, in fact, no good reason. One thing is certain; nuclear is going to look very inexpensive indeed when there begins the decline of world supplies of oil (believed imminent), coal (estimated to peak in 2025) and gas (perhaps as soon as 2030).
He also believes that by developing renewable energy “Ireland could be close to energy independence”. Would that it were so! It is because they have studied the subject and understand that wind power simply cannot be relied upon even with high levels of interconnection with other grids, and that other technologies such as wave power (and even “clean coal”) are so unproven and expensive, that the advocates for nuclear power urge that it be studied properly.
Chernobyl and Fukushima prove that nuclear power must be handled wisely and responsibly, while the hundreds of other nuclear power stations around the world prove that this is possible. In the end it will be a choice between nuclear and other options that will be prohibitively expensive and impractical. The decision must rest not on complacency, prejudice and knee-jerk reactions, but on proper examination. – Yours, etc,