• Question: what is your opinion on nuclear energy

    Asked by tdaddy to Gavin, Karen, Mark, Michel, Roisin on 14 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Mark Kennedy

      Mark Kennedy answered on 14 Nov 2016:

      I’m think nuclear energy is our best shot at fulfilling our global energy requirements in the future (alongside wind and solar).

      I’ll be the first to admit, nuclear fission power plants are a risk – you have to know what you’re doing before you build one. Obviously, the disaster at Chernobyl scared a lot of people, and rightly so – the damage done was insane. But the reactors at Chernobyl were flawed, and operated by an inadequately trained team. If you follow the instructions to the letter for building a modern nuclear fission power plant, and have experts working at the site, then they are incredibly safe, and held to a very high safety standard.

      However, Ireland doesn’t need a nuclear power planet. We’re fortunate enough that we have a small enough population that we could generate all the power we need using wind turbines, solar panels, sea snakes and tidal generators.

      The dream, of course, is nuclear fusion as a power source – the trickiest and hardest of problems in nuclear physics at the moment. But if we get there, then we’ll have an energy source that won’t contribute to global warming that could power the entire world. But I don’t know if we’ll ever figure fusion out.

    • Photo: Michel Destrade

      Michel Destrade answered on 14 Nov 2016:

      In France, where I come from, 80% of the electrical energy is nuclear. In Ireland electrical energy comes mostly from burning oil (so driving an electrical car isn’t that clean after all!). On the face of it, nuclear energy is cleaner and more efficient and seems like a good option, until of course there is a disaster like Fukushima or Chernobyl. Oil is cheap for the moment but will run out sooner or later. So my conclusion is: more scientific research needed in alternative sources of energy! In Ireland we have lots of wind and water waves, and that’s not going to run out, so one day we might be in a good place for energy!

    • Photo: Roisin Jones

      Roisin Jones answered on 14 Nov 2016:

      I think Mark and Michel have pretty much articulated my thoughts on nuclear energy: we desperately need alternatives to burning fossil fuels, both because we’re running out of them, and because of the damage we’re doing to the environment in terms of climate change. However, while nuclear power is probably our best shot at producing the amount of energy we need to sustain the current energy requirements, I totally understand the reservations too: it produces toxic waste which we currently have no way of disposing, and there’s also the potential for nuclear leaks or explosions as happened at Chernobyl and Fukushima.

      Anyway, as the guys said, in Ireland we will hopefully be able to fulfill the majority of our energy needs from non-nuclear sources of renewable energy: wind, solar, wave and tidal!

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