Madam, - I was fascinated to hear Eamon Ryan, Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, speaking about the denial of uranium mining licences in Ireland. Mr Ryan said it would be "hypocritical" of him to permit the mining of uranium while campaigning against the use of the same ore.
Am I to assume that Government policy will now be to remove the electricity interconnector between Ireland and Britain as this is a tacit approval of nuclear power since it permits the usage of electricity sourced from uranium ore on this island? - Is mise,
DAITHI Ó NÉILL,
Greenvalley,
Donnybrook,
Cork.
Madam, - In a move vaguely reminiscent of the past banning of Edna O'Brien's novels (lest we have sex), Minister Eamon Ryan's banning of uranium exploration in Donegal (lest we have clean energy) is a curious way to open a "balanced" debate on nuclear power.
It might come as a surprise to him to learn that a deposit of uranium was discovered (or perhaps re-discovered) in Mary White's constituency in Co Carlow in 1976 by the Geological Survey as part of the EU's prescient programme for energy self-sufficiency, driven then not by environmental concerns but rather as a reaction to the Opec-induced oil shortages of the early 1970s.
This deposit of about 30-40 tonnes of uranium lies in the top two metres of a bog and could be skimmed off easily by Bord na Móna technology to fuel a conventional nuclear power station, equivalent in size to the coal-burning Moneypoint or the oil/gas-burning Poolbeg, for a couple of years - or perhaps 50-plus years if it was a fast-breeder reactor. Just think of the CO2 emissions we could reduce by that.
Now, faced by the growing possibility of an environmental catastrophe of global proportions, we find our "green" - in every sense of the word - Government turning its back on the only currently viable solution to its massive Kyoto overshoot, instead advocating the risible alternatives of installing CFL bulbs and turning off computers.
As a former winner of the Young Scientist competition I was proud to receive my award from the then Minister of Transport (and Energy), Erskine Childers; I would now be ashamed to do so from the present Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. - Yours etc.,
GEORGE REYNOLDS,
Consulting Geophysicist,
Annamoe,
Co Wicklow.