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TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN has fallen down the ranks in the world’s university rankings.
The Dublin institution has dropped 19 places to 129th in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2013/2014.
There was better news for University College Dublin (UCD), however, as it climbed from 187th position to 161st.
They were the only two Irish third-level institutions to make the top 200.
NUI Galway was delighted to move up 22 places to 314th in the list. President Dr Jim Browne said it was notable achievement given cuts to funding and a simultaneous rise in student numbers.
“Despite this, our university has gone against the tide to secure a marked improvement in these very competitive rankings. This is a testament to our high standards in teaching and research, and an affirmation of our very focused approach to developing an international reputation in a select set of research areas,” he said in a statement.
University College Cork (UCC) also rose up the rankings to the #276-300 ranking slots.
The California Institute for Technology (Caltech) took the top position on the league table for the third year in a row, while Harvard and Oxford were joint second.
Stanford University were knocked off the podium and had to settle for the fourth slot.
MIT, Princeton, Cambridge, University of California Berkeley, University of Chicago and Imperial College London made up the rest of the Top 10. Yale University remained just out of the top 10 and landed in 11th place again.
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings are developed with rankings data provider, Thomson Reuters.
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There’s f*ck all danger from that nuclear power plant, in fact the solar power industry has killed more people than nuclear. The fact is renewables do not generate enough power to meet our energy needs, we’ll have to stop burying our head in the sand and consider nuclear power as a way to meet our energy needs.
What! haven’t you seen godzilla.
Anyone against nuclear energy should watch a documentary called Pandoras promise. It puts perspective on nuclear energy. It is really our only present day option for energy
Trident is probably less than 20km off our shores on a regular basis. I’ve stocked up on iodine tablets since some people started to throwing them away. Idiots.
I will say though, I would prefer for this not to be the cause though. The main issue is how much we consume and not how much we need produce. It is easier to strip back rather than feed the ever growing need.
A lot of consumer products are going in the right which should be supported. People will claim I am scare-mongering but when you look at what has happened after Fukushima…
I am not saying they all must be closed but to continually go down this road, even if it seems to be getting safer (Mother nature is a wagon), seems like a wrong road to make our default.
It’s not easier to strip back the amount of energy we need instead of growing, as technology becomes more advanced we will need more energy. If you want to halt the amount of energy we use then eventually you will halt progress and halt improvements in peoples quality of life, and they will not stand for that no matter how many public awareness campaigns you launch about turning off switches on appliances when not in use.
And while we’re on the topic of Fukushima, do you know how many people died in that disaster? none according to the UN, the Japanese evacuated them. A nuclear power plant was hit directly by one of the largest tsunamis in modern history and no one died. You are scare mongering we’re not in a tectonically active zone.
Fukushima was an outlier, in fairness. The newest generation of nuclear reactors have an impeccable safety record, and that record keeps improving with each generation.
Malachi I am more worried about a terrorist attack and this Country would be melted if anything were to happen
Nuclear energy has a future there are so many areas we can develop such as molten salt reactors (which would “burn up” as vast majority of the waste) multiple fusion reactions and various designs of reactors, traveling wave reactors and hopefully get to the stage were we could create total annihilation reactions. Unlike renewable energy which is basically limited to how close we can put a really big solar panel to the sun and deliver the energy back to earth.
Terrorist attacks? That’s a longshot. There are much more effective ways for terrorists to kill people that don’t involve getting through the heavily armed (assault rifles) security that surround nuclear sites 24/7 in Britain.
The Belgium attackers had been planning to attack a nuclear power plant for months, filming its daily operations etc. Honestly only a matter of time before one of those apes flies a plane into one. To say its a long shot is barmy at this stage. So is building new ones imo.
Keith, I think you underestimate the level of security afforded to nuclear power plants these days.
Maybe a better way to frame what I am saying is to strip back not in how much but in HOW we consume. The conservation rather than the removing.
“halt improvements in peoples quality of life” Such as? I am not advocating hospitals being shut down. I get what you are saying though. Amount of hissy fits I listened to about energy saving lightbulbs…
No, nobody died directly from the meltdown.
https://www.google.ie/#q=satellite+picture+of+radiation+from+fukushima
Who knows what after affects it will cause.
Guaranteed price for a company that is billions in debt. Nice to have friends in the right places.
@ dan sounds like IW ?
Peter the IW record needs to be changed so please take it somewhere else .
Where’s me iodine tablets?
Someone ring Joe Jacob.
The arguments below are missing the point completely, nuclear just doesn’t make economic sense here (not yet at least), it is an extremely capital intensive and expensive way to generate power and you need large aggregated populations to justify it. One of the reasons it’s so expensive is the material is so sensitive and dangerous to handle. Some of our imported energy is probably nuclear generated, but it’s a tiny fraction of what’s originally generated there
Give it a rest Peter, move on!
I hope we can buy some cheap power from them…these scammer wind turbines are popping up all over the midlands…a lotta people making a lotta shekels before they ever produce a kilowatt.
We actually export a chunk of energy to the UK
Wind energy providers get around £80 per MW in NI (€75 in ROI), much less than what is being proposed with this nuclear station.
*MWhr
Correct, electricity generated from wind in ROI gets around €75/MWh for 15 years. This power plant will get £95/MWh (€120/MWh) for 30 years. This is such a rip off for the UK tax payer.
Renewables are not just the future, they are the present. And by the time this nuclear plant is built all wind and solar farms will have batteries attached so they can provide base load generation.
Other way round I would have thought. What energy source do we have, turf?
Yup, some people won’t let facts get in the way of an argument though!
Sure, we all know they produce much more power. But what do you have for it, a nasty, toxic nuclear power plant full of cancerous materials that have ‘against all the odds’ ruined a lot of areas in the past. Not to mention trying to dispose of this stuff.
You cannot run a national grid reliant on a system reliant on batteries.
Kevin ,
Wind isn’t dispatchable so you need a secondary dispatchable energy converter who also gets paid. So to provide electricity on a 24 7 basis then the nuclear option is better
We should really be considering nuclear also. We are effectively a nuclear country anyway with the amount of nuclear plants in Britain and I’m sure we have imported our fair share of nuclear energy. Modern nuclear plants are incredibly safe and produce lots of clean energy. We are more likely to be effected by an accident at Sellafield than an accident at a new modern plant here in Ireland.
We also import nuclear generated power
Could you back that up? 100s of thousands of deaths directly from chernobyl disaster alone. Not to mention the other 3 or 4 large meltdowns. How many have died because of solar power exactly?
Me mate Frank did! was robbing one off somebodies roof and slipped. Killed instantly.
Karma’s a bicth.
@Jim Meen. 100s of thousands of deaths?? I’ve never read that anywhere but I stand to be corrected if you’ve a reputable source. What are the other 3or4 meltdowns?? Did anyone die at these “meltdowns”? Never heard about those either… As a counter argument, do you or have you ever burned coal by any chance Jim? Then you’ve been indirectly responsible for more deaths than nuclear has caused…because in any year there are more deaths from coal mining and coal related illnesses than have EVER been from nuclear combined. So can we stop all the nuclear scare mongering until we’ve done some research. Nuclear plants don’t just “meltdown” and they are going to dump there nuclear waste in Rosslare Harbour, as the speaker in this article almost seems to be suggesting
Im not arguing against nuclear power, and i understand theres a lot more protection proceedures in place etc, unless its run by Mr Burns we’ll probably be grand. Im just wondering how solar has killed more people than nuclear. The initial chernobyl was 4000 deaths, with in excess of 200,000 deaths from cancer linked to the disaster. There was a few other nuclear accidents, including nuclear submarines, and power stations. There has been dozens of cases where patients receiving radiation therapy have been accidently killed. Accidents can and do happen.
Sorry to be argumentative Jim but I can’t see how you think you are not arguing against nuclear power. Most lines in your comment seemed to be counter to nuclear. I’m also struggling with your figures and other examples. Initial death toll of Chernobyl is less than 50, 28 being emergency workers. And over 20yrs later they think that 4000 might be linked to cancer but that’s very hard to say as it’ll never be known how many would have died from cancer without the disaster.
I suppose I’m really just not a fan of any debate where Chernobyl is used as a counter argument for using nuclear energy because I just don’t see it as relevant. It shouldn’t have a will never happen again.
As for Fukushima, the people who actually died from the tsunami in Japan are totally forgotten because nuclear makes for better news.
Have a read of this for a different point of view on nuclear and the news of Fukushima at the time:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-12860842
By the way, statistically, Hydro Power is the most dangerous of all methods of power generation, which was a surprise to me as I presumed coal to be. Probably hard to link respiratory illnesses etc… I doubt a dam being built for hydro power would lead to a public outcry for safety the same way nuclear does
“The solar power industry has killed more people”
Where on earth are you getting that from?
Fact is Nuclear is a terrible form of energy as it produces waste that needs to be stored in a secure location for 10000 years. (Not even mentioning the other problems with it…)
Ireland and all island nations have the best source of power available at their doorstep which is only seldomly used: the sea.
And wind can produce plenty of power. Denmark for example has 40% of its power coming from wind.
Andy nuclear power is the safest form of power generation on the planet & hydro is the most dangerous. The former killing the least amount of people since it was invented & the latter killing the most. Now I’m not saying it’s perfect because like all power generation it has its problems but safety is not one of them. That’s a myth.
Surely coal has killed more if you include the mining accidents & air pollution deaths?
No apparently hydro has killed more but coal kills more than nuclear with its own radiation produced when coal is burned.
I always thought coal was the most dangerous too, isn’t the estimated death toll due to the air pollution from coal production in the hundreds of thousands?
@Mjhint, Nuclear power plants may be safe, in general, but the problem what to do with the waste they produce remains. And if there is an accident then you can end up with whole areas being made uninhabitable, the chances for that are slim, but it could happen. Not sure what an alternate would be, but maybe offshore windparks, and tidal power plants could be developed further.
Hydroelectricity is most commonly a byproduct of drinking water storage or irrigation schemes. Trying to argue that deaths due to dam failures makes hydroelectricity the most dangerous form of energy is silly. In most cases the dams would have failed regardless of whether there were hydroelectric turbines in place. Also smaller ‘run of the river’ schemes don’t require any impoundment and have negligible impact on the river ecology.
Also worth keeping in mind that Hydroelectricity has the highest ‘Energy Return on Energy Invested’ (EROEI).
Traditional nuclear reactors are only 3% efficient at burning off fuel rods due to trapped nuetron absorbs in the metal. if you use molten salt reactors the fuel will be a liquid so those nuetron absorbs will boil off. meaning that the process become around 98% efficient meaning that alot shorter time is needed to store the nuclear waste 50 – 100 years. http://egeneration.org/solution/wamsr/
Anyone who thinks Nuclear power is safe needs to answer a few simple questions.
How can the coriums beneath the Fukushima plant be recovered? How can the radiation be contained?
The true impact of the Chernobyl disaster can be seen across the population of the region, but there can now be no containment of the Fukushima radiation which is many times greater worse.
Some of you supporting nuclear power rattle on about how safe it is there has been two disastrous meltdowns so far in recent years and theres a possibility however remote of a terrorist strike by lunatics . There must other safer ways of producing electricity
and don’t forget wave power look how many have died on the ocean with those killer waves, now that is a real natural born killer. The more radiation I say the better.
We could have had 3 for the price of Anglo…
Brilliant just wait until ISIS blow it up and then we are in trouble.
@Maoilséachlaoin
That won’t happen – because the Civil Nuclear Constabulary would prevent it.
Stupidest thing I will read all week
Nuclear energy is now safe. Sure none died in Fukushima. Place is uninhabitable for a billion years but none died. Safe as it’s ever been is what that guy in reactor 4 was thinking to himself in Chernobyl.
@ManUtdMan
The Fukushima disaster was caused by a tsunami, which will never happen in the UK or Ireland.
Furthermore, the Chernobyl disaster happened because of the inefficiency for which the Soviet Union was notorious.
So no tsunamis or inefficiencies for the next 1000 years. Sure a leak now and then will probably do us good anyway
We have had tsunamis and will have tsunamis in the future!
The last one was in 1700s caused by the Lisbon Quake.
BTW I’m totally in favour of nuclear power and would happily live beside one.
My point entirely. We never know what is just around the corner. Accidents have & will happen (stray surface to air missile from the local jihadist?) I realise the amount of Nuclear plants around are growing but the damage to the planet from its waste is scary. Waste, wind & water management is the way forward
If everyone did a good day of work on the bog the world wouldn’t be needing fangled nukuleer things.
Fourth generation nuclear generating stations produce less nuclear waste than previous generations, are safer and are the most viable alternative to carbon sources of energy.
There aren’t any Gen IV reactors finished that I know of, and all of the ones in production (apart from one) are expected to be finished in the coming decades. Hopefully by that time they’ll be obsolete – we may have cracked nuclear fusion by then.
or us all no more
About time Ireland stopped being so squeamish about nuclear power we need a nuclear power station here to supply our electricity Base load needs and we have an absolutely perfect site in poolbeg, generate the power right where it’s needed
Moneypoint would be perfect , its got the 400kva lines running from it.
Christy Moore has been informed.
My uncle brought the generator all the way from Clare to Carnsore Point in the back of a Morris Minor van.
#HippieRoadTrip.
In the days when life was so much easier.B&Q sell nowadays lol
Can anyone shed any light on the rumours of dumping of hazardous waste (possibly nuclear) years ago, about 200 miles of the coast of cork/Kerry? It would’ve been outside our waters anyway. I’m hoping I dreamt it.
Completely true. That story needs to be written.
I remember this also.
Yeah it’s true, explains the large chips on the shoulders you langers have down there
Is that you uncle Fester?
Hang on, Ireland is burning fossil fuels and dumping raw sewage into its rivers and they’re talking about a risk to the environment and the damage that power plant can do! Talk about hypocrisy!
GTFO. The UK has 9 times as many coal plants as we have. Dumping raw sewage, I assume, is an issue with farmers that, I would also be quite sure, happens over in the UK also.
The risk is not only environmental and we are well within our rights to be vocal on the matter!
The UK also has about 12 times our population.
But the Uk don’t allow other countries to build one for their power crisis. For them it is ok, double standards
What country did they object to ?
Which country did they object to
Yes, I’m sure the UK not wanting Iran, which has an Ayatollah hell bent on the “elimination” of Israel, to have nuclear reactors (which would allow production of nuclear weapons) is a terrible, evil, selfish idea.
/sarcasm
And Israel hellbent on eliminating it’s neighbours which in fact is actively doing quite successfully.
Nuclear is the way forward. We should replace our peat and coal burning plants with nuclear.
I don’t want a nuclear reactor built beside me! We still are dealing with the effects of Chernobyl and that was hundreds of miles away and 30 years later!
Who is still dealing with the effects of Chernobyl? You? I sincerely doubt that.
What effects animals are thriving inside the exclusion zone!
@Prionsias, You’re wrong.
we have come a long way since then, the Chernobyl design of power plant is around 50 years old. The disaster is self was caused by human error, i.e. the wrong people being in control, which was common in the soviet union. Modern nuclear reactors are much cleaner and much safer.
Do people not realise how much plutonium is dumped into the Irish sea already?
http://www.epa.ie/radiation/monassess/sellafield/#.VmkhTtHMXIU
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/nov/30/greenpolitics.health
Why not build it on the East coast of England then?
Because even though the British government are ” convinced nuclear power is 100% safe” they’d rather put them in a remote an area as possible and spent 100′s of millions alone on infrastructure for transporting the energy and for disposing of waste. But don’t worry it’s perfectly safe…..
The British government knows it isn’t safe but the military complex loves the ready made Plutonium they get for near nothing as the fools pay for the by-product of the steam used to drive the turbines for electricity…
If the French want it so much put on their side of England!! If the company is in so much debt imagine the corners that will be cut. Where is our great leader now?? Ffs
Now that’s a terrifying thought… Enda Kenny anywhere near organising the construction of a nuclear plant. … Siteserve he we come…
You do realise that 75% of French Electricity is nuclear produced! Obviously not.
France is rolling back on nuclear energy though. By 2025 that figure will be 50% and they’re aiming for 100% renewable by 2050 although that probably unrealistic. Anyway they’re rolling away from a technology so they’re hardly a good example when arguing that we should embrace it.
Scrap nuclear power its lethal concentrate on clean renewable energy Solar Hydro Wind etc we have enough filthy fossil fuels to see us through to the day when that can power the world technology improves day by day
“Clean” renewables are not (yet) efficient enough to carry the world’s energy needs on their shoulders alone. Scrapping nuclear power would be a devastating move to the world’s energy supply.
Yep agreed but we have enough filthy but not lethal fossil fuel left to see us through till the day renewable can power the world
Fossil fuels are quite lethal – coal kills thousands with air pollution and mining, and fossil fuels in general are heating the planet which will be lethal for us in the coming years unless we curb our emissions.
For this reason, nuclear power is essential as it plugs the gap that renewables won’t be able to fill, and you won’t need to use fossil fuels.
Shame we can’t build one for ourselves. Best source of energy on the world
Greenpeace have lost all respect since they came out against golden rice.
Vitimin A deficency can easily be tackled without resorting to genetic engineering. The consequences of using these crops are completely unknown because the mechanism by which the beta carotene is produced is not understood.
What? Please, explain how else Vit A deficiency should be combatted. What other methods are there? Continuous consumption of tablets?
GM food has been studied extensively for decades and no health side effects have been identified. Not sure why you think the beta-carotene production would change that?
@Malachi, You’re so stupid it’s astounding. Seriously. You’re commenting about something that you know NOTHING about.
“how else Vit A deficiency should be combatted. What other methods are there? Continuous consumption of tablets?”
Oh dear god. You actually wrote that.
The way vitamin deficiency is always dealth with is by consuming a varied diet. Y’know, eating vegetables, fruit and things like that? Also by biofortification. Vitamins are added to foods such as breakfast cereals, bread, milk etc and have been for years. You never heard of that? ffs.
You haven’t even read the back of a cornflakes box. Less of your stupid right wing bullsh!t please.
Coles you are a grade A moron !
Follow the money, Sean?
It’s not the danger from the plant that annoys me. Next gen plants like Hinckley will be incredibly safe, much safer than the alternatives such as coal or oil fired plants.
But the guaranteed rate is more than twice, nearly three times the market value and they’re not even putting all of the capital up front to build it. They’re getting heavy state assistance.
The argument against nuclear isn’t about safety, it’s about economics.
Bang on sean
Has the journal turned into Fox News, serious scare mongering with this article. I am still waiting on sellafield to explode
Bring back Joe Jacob the man with a plan or at least a tablet.
It has been shown that Fracking causes earthquakes and that around Bristol is a major fracking area. Why build a nuclear reactor at Hinkley Point, when it is in the middle of fracking sites?
http://frack-off.org.uk/locations/
https://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/climate/issues/uk_fracking_map_41274
@MjHint In deaths perhaps but the thousands of cancers and displacement of hundreds of thousands in Belarus and Ukraine unlikely to have occured because of hydro, not to mention contamination of hundreds of thousands of acres…
Why are the animals thriving in the exclusion zone and some people never moved out!
@Prionsias, You’re still wrong.
Renewable clean safe green energy is the future. Look at the disaster at Chernobyl in Ukraine a thousand miles uninhabitable for thousands of years and now they intend to build a massive Solar base there.
If Sterling drops any more then this investment won’t look so good
We will stick to the turf
There are some incredibly ill-informed comments on here regarding the UK’s nuclear power plants. The south east of the U K is no stranger to nuclear power. Just look at a map of current and previous nuclear stations and stop spouting rubbish.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/02/29/article-2108218-11F90B45000005DC-59_636x789.jpg
And our stupid gombeen government ministers have absolutely nothing to say about the danger to our environment or the risk of this nuclear power station malfunctioning
Get over it
That’s only 150 miles ( for us older folk)…they avoid putting these reactors near London, or even on the East coast, in case theirs a ,mishap, like Chernobyl? Nice.
And our stupid gombeen government ministers have absolutely nothing to say about this risk to the Irish environment or the danger of a nearby nuclear power station malfunctioning
have your say