Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
ENERGY MINISTER ALEX White believes there is a risk that Ireland will fall short of its renewable energy targets in the coming years.
White said that on current projections the country could fail to ensure that 16% of its total energy needs are coming from renewable sources by 2020. In 2013 Ireland had met less than half that requirement.
In a wide-ranging interview with TheJounal.ie yesterday, White said that the country will have to “up our game”. Under the EU 2020 plans, 40% of Ireland’s electricity needs must be generated from renewable sources. This currently runs at around 23%.
“Heat and transport will be more difficult, transport in particular. We really do need to make more progress on transport,” White said.
Under the 2020 rules 12% of Ireland’s heating needs and 10% of its consumption of energy for transport must come from renewable sources by 2020. He said this would mean more use of electric vehicles:
The minister said progress had been slow as there needed to be considerable investment in areas like rail electrification and conversion to electric cars:
So it’s about the electric vehicles themselves first of all, and we have a grant system there. But it’s also about local authorities coming on board and making sure that there are refuelling facilities around the cities and towns of Ireland to promote the use of electric vehicles.
White, who will publish a white paper on energy policy for the next 15 years next week, said he plans to introduce a renewable heat initiative (RHI) next year. This will incentivise large buildings and industries to look at using renewable heat.
White also told TheJournal.ie that he does not foresee a nuclear power plant being built in Ireland in the future. As well as a lack of enthusiasm among the public, he cited the questionable economics of such a move:
I don’t see Ireland introducing nuclear, certainly not while I’m minister or within the purview of this white paper, certainly not.
The Labour TD said his white paper would go towards the ultimate aim of making Ireland a low-carbon economy by 2050, saying: “I think that you could see a reduction of somewhere between 80% and 95%, I think, on 1990 levels.”
He said this week’s storms and flooding in parts of the country underlined the need to see the link between climate change and extreme weather events that are now affecting Ireland.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny was accused of “speaking out of both sides” of his mouth when addressing the COP21 global climate change summit in Paris last week.
Kenny said the EU had set “unrealistic” emissions targets for the agriculture sector on which Ireland is heavily dependent.
But White, who attended the Paris summit earlier this week, insisted Ireland was “very committed” to its targets claiming the country is regarded as “a leader” on renewable energy:
I think we will have to make the case for agriculture [but] we also need to be making the case for what we’re doing on the other side of the equation which is real progress on renewable energy.
There’ll be more from our interview with Alex White on TheJoural.ie in the coming days.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
“I don’t see Ireland introducing nuclear, certainly not while I’m minister…” Lol! What’s he got left, a few months?! They’re so deluded I almost pity them.
Only nuclear he’ll see will be his popularity bombing in the General Election. P45 for Alexander the Liar
Shouldn’t take more than a month or two to get a nuclear plant up and running
P45 and a nice little Pension
I would like to know what is coming up in the white paper?. As it’s taking so long to be made public.
His next interview will be singing the praises of his,Pet rabbittes and Amon Gilmore s future employers in the wind(scam)energy sector.
Gilroys: by the time the White Paper is published the solar industry will be sewn up by the insiders and any one else in the industry will be left chasing the scraps. A great little country to do business in.
labour traitors
Mr. Eircodes himself
It’s an unpopular position but, despite radioactive residue, I favour 4th generation nuclear powered generating stations constructed in geologically stable areas which are not at risk of flooding. With interconnectors cross border, some of Ireland’s electricity indirectly derives from nuclear generation.
The majority of Irish people now support NP. There are no non geologically unstable areas in Ireland.
No Nuclear energy is one of the most expensive forms of energy on the planet and there is the huge costs of disposal or radioactive material than can remain lethal for up to a million years and the inherent risks of nuclear power. Green energy is the future, with huge advances in battery storage and costs rapidly decreasing with solar costs having reduced by 90% in recent years.
That should be 80%.
Yup and the sun has been shining a lot lately…….
Go Green, more Greenwash BS. France has the cheapest electricity in Europe and generates 80% from NP. There aren’t huge costs of disposal, it’s almost nothing because it doesn’t need to happen for 50+ years. A cost that far in the future is almost zero in accountancy terms. NP is safer than ALL other forms of electricity production except gas. A dam collapsed in China and killed 250,00 once. Chernobyl killed less than 50 people. There are almost NO advances in battery storage and there won’t be. Batteries hold a tiny amount of electricity, enough for a phone but not enough to run a factory. The Sun doesn’t shine much in Ireland so Solar is almost useless.
Go Green, that is a fantasy and you are engaged in fantastical thinking which is more likely to cause claim ate change. Green tech only offers a partial solution. Our entire civilisation is built on energy. Nuclear power offers a way to deliver this reasonably cheaply. Even James Lovelock the revered green author of The Ages of Gaia (the Gaia Hypothesis) thinks claim ate change will kill us unless we go nuclear and that this is the “least worst” option.
@GO GREEN: 4th gen nuclear uses rad waste almost completely, it doesnt make more.- problem with advanced 4th gen nuclear is it requires a big investment to develop and all too often big tech has been attended by corruption fraud and abuse. But its far better than fossil fuels.
The thought of someone like Alex White having ultimate responsibility for something like a nuclear reactor is probably one of the scariest things I can think of. Don’t get me wrong, at some point we’re going to have to look at the option but for all our sakes I hope we have our current political gombeen men long consigned to history before we actually build one.
The idea of a minister being personally responsible for a highly technical device such as a nuclear power station shows how deluded your ideas about governance are. If you think that Irish scientists and engineers can’t manage this is even more distressing to consider.
Will van der well said. The ESB would be well capable of running a nuclear power station. The organisation is run by engineers and has an excellent safety record. The notion that Govt would be involved in the operations of a nuclear power station is laughable. And we can we drop the self loathing. We have people in this country who are as skilled and able as any in the world.
Ultimately someone like Alex will have to decide who gets the contract to build the plant, where to build it, who gets the contract for disposal and transportation of waste, what kind of reactor is constructed, what safety procedures are followed etc etc. Ultimately someone like Alex will be responsible for signing off on all of these things.. With political corruption being what it is in Ireland and our politicians having a history of disregarding expert advise for a fast buck there’s not a chance in hell I’d want the current lot next neigh or near a project like this.
Could you imagine the time it would take to get planing permission!! Decades… We can’t even decide where a kids hospital should go!!
Planning permission is no bother, just hand about a 100k sterling in an envelope to a dodgy councillor and we’ll be splitting atoms in no time.
the more well off home owners might be able to become more independent and sidestep the ESB with solar power feeding batteries see eg Tesla batteries. Ireland should make all this great stuff itself.
It’s beyond risk it’s an acceptance at this stage we will fail Kyoto 2020. In 2020 we will then be hit with Hundreds of millions of euros in fines
More White Lies
..and who is this quango ‘fining’ us and where does this money go exactly ?? The whole thing is a fraud tbh. Even is weer miss the targets, so what? Just don’t go paying any tax payers money to anyone. What will ‘they’ do is we don’t ? Cut off our oxygen or something ? We’d be morons to pay.
These are the same people who can’t understand why the flooding is so bad, you’d wonder maybe with such a large proportion of dummies we deserve what we get from climate change. Wish this problem came about in 100 years when less people denied science
Is the ESB anything got to do with the flooding???
Excellent article supporting N.P, thanks Micheal
New tech Clean Nuclear is ultimately the future
Good man Mr. White. Just continue making conventional power stations go up and down the gears and wreck the machinery for the sake of the wind mills! Besides, it already makes a whole pile of money for everyone with their snouts in the wind energy trough?
Another s+I+e talker…”up our game”…clichés and spin.its all about talking down to us about how and why we gotta pay more taxes…
Mr White won’t mind the big EU fines if we fail, as we’ll be subsidising his wages and pensions with regular tops ups for the rest of his life….in fact they’ll probably think of a way out by taxing the taxpayer again…they like solving everything with a tax.
This government is sitting on Donegal and it has one of the riches sources of Uranium ore going but they can’t make money on it because they are stopped by the Zangger Committee, also known as the Nuclear Exporters Committee…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zangger_Committee
State a fact and get thumbs down, that is funny… I like that…
Yes we will fail the Kyoto deadline, because thats what Enda wants in order to support TTIP! Make no mistake about it!
With the help of God ,you will not be in government Mr White,and have nothing to do with it.done a good job on eircode, right.
So Ireland has to up its game says Minister White, anybody taking bets on a certain Malteser getting into the wind farm game in the near future. He has a few hundred million burning a hole in his pocket having made a killing on Topaz helped, no doubt, by them acquiring the State contract for fuel, plus the franchises for motorway service areas All legitimate of course, our government parties are beyond reproach, isn’t that right Mr. Mc Elvaney?
Isn’t this the new type of politics Kenny promised us
Uruguay, a country to Ireland’s size using mixed sustainable energy sources has now achieved over over 90% of its energy needs….. Shows you what can be done if we just applied ourselves, invest in green industries in this country. But then again that would be talking sense!
The best sustainable baseload power source, Totally CO2 free. Wind power is simply inadequate, unreliable and a blight on our green landscape
The thing about wind power was that it was supposed to be part of an integrated system of renewable energy sources including things like solar and tidal etc. Somewhere along the line some shrewd fcukers found that there was quite a lot of money to be made on wind alone due to it requiring a combination of legislation to be pushed through, land to be bought and local politicians to be paid off to screw their communities. Other renewable source have been completely over looked as a result.
Rasputin..a lot of folk are gonna be sooo embarrassed ( but also very rich) when the story of wind power is laid bare….its an amazingly transparent scam..simple examination of the scam will alarm you..
Hey Marge look at this country!!!!
Uruguay is TOTALLY different to Ireland. Here’s a quote, “The electricity sector of Uruguay is largely based on domestic hydropower along with thermal power plants, and is reliant on imports from Argentina and Brazil at times of peak demand. ….. Hydropower provides around 60% of installed production capacity in Uruguay, almost all of it produced by four hydroelectric facilities”
We have no more Hydropwer locations. Some countries have natural sources of electability and heat, Iceland has underground heat, Norway has Hydro but we have nothing. Wind is nearly useless as it’s so intermittent.
electability=electricity
Big green subsidises = cash cow.
William this fact quoting thing has to stop. It’s killing the Luddites!
There is the possibility of geothermal in parts of Dublin and a 3km test bore was drilled in Rathcoole. http://www.loc8code.com/NT4-61-M73 A pilot housing estate with geo district heating was refused permission by SDCC
Most of the civil service is stuck in a 1970s mindset and haven’t got the brains to understand that the world has changed so they keep pushing ministers into idiotic positions. Mind you the failed lawyers teachers and auctioneers (not to mention idiot children of dead tds) don’t do anything to challenge the civil servant time servers. Ireland needs more electricity so we can electrify our railways and vehicles and stop using gas for heating and cooling. Nuclear and stored/pumped hydro is the only way forward. And we could be exporting the excess.
HOTbank so easy and stupidly populist to criticise the civil servants with tired and worn clichés. If you want to find out why we have these policies ask the Green Party who were formally in Govt with FF and who are responsible. You will find it is politicians who are responsible but it’s easier to perpetuate the myth you do than face the fact that our own voting preferences condemn us to this faith. There are few if any votes in nuclear as once you recommend it every lunatic will come out and attack you whereas few people will defend you. It will probably cost a Govt a great deal of political capital to get nuclear adopted as a serious option. It may cost them votes. And that is the real reason it is going nowhere. Nothing to do with civil servants. Presumably you’re a voter. If you are then take responsibility for your choices and stop blaming civil servants who have to take direction from those whom your choices elect. It’s called democracy.
John hotbank appears to have hit a public servant nerve. Tell us who interfered in Eircode and ensured we didn’t get what was recommended or tendered for? DCENR, An Post, CWU??? Or are you going to blame the politicians for the Eircode fiasco ???
Get Lost, I’m bemused. Why does every article have to default back to your personal obsession? This article is about nuclear power. Civil servants are not responsible for every debacle in the private sector. You didn’t win a contract. I’m sorry for you. For every company that wins a contract multiple others lose. It’s like any competition. Move on please. Yawn.
Firstly I’m not Gary Delaney and secondly I don’t do true public tenders as they are rarely fair nor open and when they are they are a pissing competition. I’m in IT sector and the good IT providers avoid public tenders like the plague hence the mediocrity in this area for the state. So can you please answer my questions on Eircode? Who ensured a mediocre unusable postcode? Labour? An Post? CWU? DCENR? Who switched it from something useful for deliveries, navigation & Emergency services to a property reference number for billing & charges
So I guess it’s not tomorrow we will see the new guidelines on wind farms who were supposed to be published 18 months ago …
In your own time minister… The longer we wait the more brown envelops going around right ?
4th generation nuclear generation is safe as houses cobalt spheres cooled with gases that can be recycled to cool again with an almost impossible risk of meltdown like in older generation systems it’s a no brainer Google it yourself it’s probably the best chance becoming energy independence for us, bus politically it a hot potato due to poor education.
Your are not looking at the whole picture and your point that nuclear power is” hot potato due to poor education” is just plain silly and ridiculous and demeaning.
NO.
Go Green, you ARE obviously completely illiterate on Nuclear Power matters. If you find that demeaning, then read up on NP. I mean books not Greenwash quack web sites.
Incentivise ordinary people to install Solar panels, both PV and heating. Introduce a worthwhile feed-in tariff for the power generated by these people. All across Europe you can see houses with solar panels. I’ve never understood why we aren’t doing this. The roll out of electric charging points has been so slow as to be negligible. Either you’re serious about doing this or you’re not.
Errr. You serious?
Rooftop Solar PV is one of the cheapest sources of energy available. Price have dropped 75% in four years and are dropping further.
The difference in insolation between Cork for example and Athens is less than 10%. Ireland is pretty much equivalent to Northern Germany where more than 20% of power comes from solar PV. At the moment solar PV anywhere south of the M7 is cheaper than grid power over a ten year period.
The big problem is that at the moment any excess power you have is just thieved by ESB. They even have the gall to fine you €9.45 per billing cycle for giving them free power. It’s not remotely viable (yet) to operate entirely off-grid because the price of batteries hasn’t dropped enough yet (though a battery of 7.5kWh is financially viable, which would cover most average homes overnight).
The day they introduce a feed-in tariff I’ll be installing 11kW of panels which at any feeding tariff above 6c/kWh will pay for itself in under 8 years.
You are funny, Buster…
@cros13: great info- batteries are obviously the choke point, but clearly the future.
Wouldn’t it be great if Ireland could be more independent and sustainable?
Batteries seem to be a potential paradigm shifter, the key, both to energy independence and to economic and political independence. Batteries can at least reduce dependency on central power sources which have vested interests in dirty tech, like ESB, with backing from government foot draggers.
Just so glad that Irish people can discuss NP. A few years, we could not discuss having a discussion!
It’s NP or Greenwash. Take your pick.
It is about time the irish govt SERIOUSLY consider nuclear. Burning gas, turf, is unacceptable. So is the irish nimby solution of importing electricy (which simply re-locates our C02). The greens are anti C02 reduction, and spread fear, anxiety and total misinformation regarding NP. When it comes to national power schemes, the government should consult with France who have been using NP since 1976 without incident….. And by the way, they have the cheapest electricity in the EU.
..There’s not enough land for a nuclear power station the cost would be to great it would be better to invest in Icelandic energy export if possible
Buster, the rivers and ocean can power a lot of energy…
http://www.marineturbines.com/3/news/article/7/seagen__the_world_s_first_commercial_scale_tidal_energy_turbine_deployed_in_northern_ireland
Nuclear gives out nuclear waste and radioactive coolant as in water used to cool the rods… Look up Windscale… So good they had to name it twice lol.
Yes, there is waste with NP. But the amount is miniscule compared to the amount of power generated. By comparison, fossil fuels contribute billions of tons of waste waste dumped into the air we breath. Windscale? Remind me, when was it built? And how many people were injured?
Michael, there is no large scale tidal power electricity generation operating anywhere in the world. The high level waste one person would create if in their ENTIRE life all energy came from NP is the size of a bar of soap. Did you not know that? There is MORE radioactivity liberated into the air from burning coal than NP. I suppose you didn’t know that either?
William, Nice to hear a view from someone with an open mind who has researched some facts.
Buster, Nuclear waste kills, causes cancer and many believe that is why the cancer rate is so high on the Eastern side of Ireland because of Sellafield, if one nuclear plant can cause so much cancer here from England then what would one do here, triple it???
See my earlier link on this page, NP as in Sellafield NP station is blamed for the increase of cancer here in Ireland, although they compare the plant to what it is now compared to how dangerous it was, it was that bad they changed its name from WINDSCALE due to all the leaks and accidents it had…
http://www.irishhealth.com/article.html?id=6677
http://thepressnet.com/2011/04/19/the-irish-sea-one-of-the-most-radioactive-bodies-of-water-in-the-world/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire
“The Windscale fire of 10 October 1957 was the worst nuclear accident in Great Britain’s history, ranked in severity at level 5 on the 7-point International Nuclear Event Scale.[1] The fire took place in Unit 1 of the two-pile Windscale facility on the northwest coast of England in Cumberland (now Sellafield, Cumbria). The two piles had been built as part of the British atomic bomb project.[2] Windscale Pile No. 1 was operational in October 1950 followed by Pile No. 2 in June 1951.[3]
The fire burned for three days and there was a release of radioactive contamination that spread across the UK and Europe.”
Michael, that is just 100% rubbish. Low level radiation doesn’t cause cancer. Did you know you have about 1,000,000,000,000 atoms of radioactive Uranium in your body? You sound like you are about 10!
Read this http://www.radiationandreason.com/
Better still buy his book. He’s a scientist that specialises in radiation and health.
Michael, Imagine the worst nuclear accident in the UK and not a single person injured by radiation? Just shows how safe it is. How many died since then mining coal and oil, a million?
Michael, we live in a radioactive world. Do you know anything about Physics and hard stuff like that?
Michael you’re not pretending you’ve read those big words in that copy & paste now come on :)
Alpha radiation can cause lung cancer and that is the lowest form of nuclear radiation… But in nuclear reactors uranium is turned into plutonium using gamma radiation…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll
http://www.globalresearch.ca/fukushima-fallout-new-report-expects-up-to-1-million-cancer-deaths/5488464
By the way I had an uncle by marriage who use to inspect Nuclear power plants in England and he died from cancer at an early age as did his daughter, so nuclear power plants are lethal…
William Grogan, Are you taking the p….
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jul/04/radioactive-particles-beaches-sellafield
“A record number of radioactive hotspots have been found contaminating public beaches near the Sellafield nuclear complex in Cumbria, according to a report by the site’s operator.
As many as 383 radioactive particles and stones were detected and removed from seven beaches in 2010-11, bringing the total retrieved since 2006 to 1,233. “
“Michael you’re not pretending you’ve read those big words in that copy & paste now come on :)”
All those copy and pastes are from experts to prove my point, that radiation kills.
http://www.lakestay.co.uk/hot.htm
“Since the 1950′s Sellafield has pumped a quarter of a tonne of plutonium and a cocktail of other radioactive isotopes out of twin sea discharge pipes into the Irish Sea. Because the radioactive pollution is detectable the pollution can be traced as it flows into the seas around Britain. In April 1997 the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Nova Scotia found Sellafield radiation had reached the Arctic.”
http://www.rerf.jp/radefx/basickno_e/radcell.htm
“Characteristics of DNA damage by radiation exposure
Deletion of DNA segments is the predominant form of radiation damage in cells that survive irradiation. It may be caused by (1) misrepair of two separate double-strand breaks in a DNA molecule with joining of the two outer ends and loss of the fragment between the breaks or (2) the process of cleaning (enzyme digestion of nucleotides–the component molecules of DNA) of the broken ends before rejoining to repair one double-strand break.
Biological effects differ by type of radiation
Radiations differ not only by their constituents (electrons, protons, neutrons, etc.) but also by their energy. Radiations that cause dense ionization along their track (such as neutrons) are called high-linear-energy-transfer (high-LET) radiation, a physical parameter to describe average energy released per unit length of the track. (See the accompanying figure.) Low-LET radiations produce ionizations only sparsely along their track and, hence, almost homogeneously within a cell. Radiation dose is the amount of energy per unit of biological material (e.g., number of ionizations per cell). Thus, high-LET radiations are more destructive to biological material than low-LET radiations–such as X and gamma rays–because at the same dose, the low-LET radiations induce the same number of radicals more sparsely within a cell, whereas the high-LET radiations–such as neutrons and alpha particles–transfer most of their energy to a small region of the cell. The localized DNA damage caused by dense ionizations from high-LET radiations is more difficult to repair than the diffuse DNA damage caused by the sparse ionizations from low-LET radiations. ”
And for you to understand radiation does to DNA in the same way as a sandblaster does to china… No big words there…
http://www.epa.ie/radiation/monassess/sellafield/#.VmkhTtHMXIU
“The discharge of low level liquid wastes from the Sellafield site in the north west of England is the most significant source of artificial radioactivity in the Irish marine environment. Sellafield is located across the Irish Sea on the Cumbrian coast and is approximately 170 km (112 miles) from the north east coast of Ireland. The main activities at the plant include reprocessing of spent fuel from nuclear power reactors and storage of nuclear waste….
Nuclear fuel reprocessing and other activities at Sellafield give rise to the discharge of low level radioactive materials in the form of liquids and gases into the environment….
As a result of the discharges from Sellafield, low levels of artificial radioactivity can be detected in sediments, seawater, seaweeds, fish and shellfish taken from the Irish Sea. Radioactivity levels in the Irish marine environment are monitored extensively by the EPA so as to monitor the radiation dose received by the Irish population…
Radioactive materials are routinely transported through the Irish Sea to and from Sellafield. Shipments pass through the Irish Sea to the ports of Barrow-in-Furness and Workington….”
http://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/huge-nuclear-dump-near-sellafield-3443341
“Experts describe the site, which is just kilometres from Ireland’s east coast, as a ‘slow motion Chernobyl’”
“A massive nuclear dump near Sellafield and just over 160km from Ireland is “certain to leak” in the near future, an official report has warned.
Environmentalists have described the site which is just kilometres from Dublin and the densely-populated east coast as a “slow motion Chernobyl”.
The UK’s Environment Agency has now admitted it was a huge mistake to build the huge nuclear dustbin so close to the coast.
While authorities have played down the consequences, the report confirmed the dump will eventually be flooded and some of the radioactive waste stored there will spew into the Irish Sea.”
So no nuclear power is NOT CLEAN nor SAFE.
What utter rubbish!
Do you really think nuclear waste will be dumped in a tip near you?
Assuming a high on the Eastern side of Ireland, may be also be because of the very high levels of natural ration from the granite strata in Cornwall.
However, checking the FACTS, there is no difference whatever between east and west of Ireland.
http://www.ncri.ie/sites/ncri/files/atlas/old_atlas/1,2.%20Summary,%20introduction%20and%20methods.pdf
Hey, Micheal,
Yes, I have read it. I dont think you did. Nuclear radiation killed no-one.
The tsunami killed 19,000. Some of those due to a “green energy” hydro dam bursting.
Love the citation from the Daily Mirror!
There’s more health problems in this country from burning coal in money point than anything from nuclear power in the uk
Buster, The workers who dealt with the accident are dead now from radiation sickness and the area is contaminated…
http://enenews.com/radiation-expert-horrific-health-toll-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-infant-death-significantly-increased-many-areas-japan-government-actions-unconscionable-impossible-be-moved-scale-deaths-human
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2002249/Japan-tsunami-earthquake-Earless-bunny-born-near-Fukushima-raising-new-nuclear-fears.html
Radiation sterilises people as well…
Michael, Windscale???
Buster are you acting dumb about the dangers of radiation? It is like talking to someone who works for the nuclear industry… Did you do science at school?
Michael, about 25 workers died from radiation sickness, although that may include a helicopter crash. They had no protective gear which shows you how absolutely c4ap the USSR was. They died within a few weeks. Among those that recovered there was no increase in cancer and no one was sterilised. It’s all about dose, but you wouldn’t know that because you obviously haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. Radiation ONLY kills above a certain dose OTHERWISE we would ALL be dead.
William are you joking or trolling, just asking?
High levels of Radiation kills as simple as that… Why would we all be dead, please explain?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Lb4o0nxAkk
http://www.shoah.org.uk/2011/08/17/%e2%80%9cdepleted%e2%80%9d-uranium-induced-radioactivity/
That is only depleted uranium, I haven’t started on the rest yet but you keep on replying to rubbish what I say WITHOUT reading what I have replied to you with earlier, my guess is that you are making statements to promote your views as I have already answered your questions earlier on this comment line.
https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Draft:DU_Munitions_Excess_Doses_of_Gamma_to_Military_and_Civilian_Workers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQyz00DCy-4
Where do you get such nonsense from, you are arguing you case like a person trying to argue that the Sun moves around the Earth or that the Earth is flat?
I have sent a couple of links on the dangers of the so called safe DU Depleted Uranium used in weapons made in NP plants…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquidator_(Chernobyl)#Exposures_and_health_effects_experienced_by_liquidators
“According to the WHO, 240,000 recovery workers were called upon in 1986 and 1987 alone. Altogether, special certificates were issued for 600,000 people recognising them as liquidators.[4]
Total recorded doses to individual workers in Chernobyl recovery operations during the period through 1990 ranged from less than 10 millisieverts (less than 1 rem) to more than 1 sievert (100 rems), due primarily to external radiation. The average dose is estimated to have been 120 millisieverts (12 rem) and 85% of the recorded doses were between 20 and 500 millisieverts (2 to 50 rems). There are large uncertainties in these individual doses; estimates of the size of the uncertainty range from 50% to a factor of five and dose records for military personnel are thought to be biased toward high values.[5] The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) estimates the total collective dose to the total of about 530,000 recovery operations workers as about 60,000 person-sieverts (6,000,000 person-rem).[5]”
“According to Vyacheslav Grishin of the Chernobyl Union, the main organization of liquidators, “25,000 of the Russian liquidators are dead and 70,000 disabled, about the same in Ukraine, and 10,000 dead in Belarus and 25,000 disabled”, which makes a total of 60,000 dead (10% of the 600 000, liquidators) and 165,000 disabled.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Scientific_Committee_on_the_Effects_of_Atomic_Radiation
“Less frequently major public reports on Sources and Effects of Ionizing Radiation are issued. As of July 2011, there have been 20 major publications from 1958 to 2010. The reports are all available from the UNSCEAR website. These works are very highly regarded as sources of authoritative information and are used throughout the world as a scientific basis for evaluation of radiation risk. The publications review studies undertaken separately from a range of sources. Reports from UN member states and other international organisations on data from survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Chernobyl disaster, accidental, occupational, and medical exposure to ionizing radiation.
Originally, in 1955, India and the Soviet Union wanted to add several neutralist and communist states, such as mainland China. Eventually a compromise with the US was made and Argentina, Belgium, Egypt and Mexico were permitted to join. The organisation was charged with collecting all available data on the effects of “ionising radiation upon man and his environment.” (James J. Wadsworth – American representative to the General Assembly).”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#Pharmacokinetics
“Exposure to radioactive waste may cause serious harm or death. In humans, a dose of 1 sievert carries a 5.5% risk of developing cancer,[11] and this risk is assumed to be linearly proportional to dose even for low doses. Ionizing radiation causes deletions in chromosomes.[12] If a developing organism such as an unborn child is irradiated, it is possible a birth defect may be induced, but it is unlikely this defect will be in a gamete or a gamete-forming cell. ”
“Depending on the decay mode and the pharmacokinetics of an element (how the body processes it and how quickly), the threat due to exposure to a given activity of a radioisotope will differ. For instance iodine-131 is a short-lived beta and gamma emitter, but because it concentrates in the thyroid gland, it is more able to cause injury than caesium-137 which, being water soluble, is rapidly excreted in urine. In a similar way, the alpha emitting actinides and radium are considered very harmful as they tend to have long biological half-lives and their radiation has a high relative biological effectiveness, making it far more damaging to tissues per amount of energy deposited.”
“The energy and the type of the ionizing radiation emitted by a radioactive substance are also important factors in determining its threat to humans.[4] The chemical properties of the radioactive element will determine how mobile the substance is and how likely it is to spread into the environment and contaminate humans.[5] This is further complicated by the fact that many radioisotopes do not decay immediately to a stable state but rather to radioactive decay products within a decay chain before ultimately reaching a stable state.”
As there are many radioactive elements released in NP accidents not just Uranium but Plutonium as well.
William, have you never heard of the dangers of Radon gas in Irish homes, that is low level radiation as well… But it causes lung cancer even any alpha particle can cause lung cancer.
Dumping nuclear waste into the sea is stupid, I have answered all your questions in all the links that I have supplied. If you knew anything about radiation you should know the only place plutonium is made is in nuclear reactors and is not found in nature as are many other radiated elements found in the seas around Ireland and as far north as the artic.
You do not find these elements or PLUTONIUM “from the granite strata in Cornwall” as you put it. And yes I have replied to you and William with the links to show that, plutonium is found in Irish waters right up to the Artic…
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/nov/30/greenpolitics.health
http://www.corecumbria.co.uk/tour/irishsea.htm
“Sellafield discharges two million gallons of radioactive water into the Irish Sea every day at high tide. This includes a cocktail of over 30 alpha, beta and gamma radionuclides. BNFL admits that radioactive discharges in the 1970’s were 100 times those of today. As a result of these discharges, which include around half a tonne of plutonium, the Irish Sea has become the most radioactively contaminated sea in the world. Caesium-137 and Iodine-129 from Sellafield have spread through the Arctic Ocean into the waters of northern Canada and are having a bigger impact on the Arctic than the Chernobyl accident. Sellafield’s gas discharges of Krypton can be measured in Miami.”
Micael, couple of important point. 1. 1957 2. No-one was killed or injured.
Dear Micheal “copy and past” My wife also has lung cancer. She has never been anywhere near a NP station. (She did smoke however).
There are many things that kill, micheal. Cars Ciggies Alcohol Bees Organic beansprouts Slippers. I agree high level ionizing radiation is very dangerous. So i was suggest you stay away from a hot nuclear core. The point is you need get some kind of perspective
Only a quarter of a ton since 1950? Go find out how much radiation has been releasd by burning coal for 60 years.
Ok, micheal, you have me there. Ireland should definitely not build a NP station to the chernobyl design. That was a cole call.
Windscalr was a military plutonium production pile
Buster, I hope your wife gets better…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advisory_Committee_on_Human_Radiation_Experiments
“The report found that between 1945 and 1947 eighteen hospital patients were injected with plutonium. The doctors selected patients likely to die in the near future. Despite the doctors’ prognoses, several lived for decades after.[7] Ebb Cade was an unwilling participant in medical experiments that involved injection of 4.7 micrograms of Plutonium on 10 April 1945 at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.[8][9] This experiment was under the supervision of Harold Hodge.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_testing_at_Bikini_Atoll#Japanese_fishermen_contaminated
“Ninety minutes after the detonation, 23 crew members of the Japanese fishing boat the Daigo Fukuryū Maru (“Lucky Dragon No. 5″)[26] also were contaminated by the snow-like irradiated debris and ash. They had no idea what the explosion they’d seen meant nor any inkling of the nature of the deadly debris that rained down on them like snow. But they all soon became ill with the effects of acute radiation poisoning.”
Buster, you stated “Only a quarter of a ton since 1950? Go find out how much radiation has been releasd by burning coal for 60 years.”
There is a difference in the radiation type and amount of coal, granite, gypsum etc compared to depleted Uranium or plutonium… Arsenic is common in ground water and can cause cancer but at higher levels it kills but with radiation it is the amount, the type as there is alpha, beta, gamma and X Rays…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/science/ocr_gateway_pre_2011/living_future/4_nuclear_radiation1.shtml
Plutonium is both poisonous and radioactively toxic…
I do not dispute that nuclear weapons are dangerous. I am talking about modern MSR or IV gen reactors. Put it this way, you are perfectly happy to drive a car, but they kill 300 a year. Maybe your home has gas? a couple were killed in a gas explosion a few weeks ago. Are you happy to take a plane? You are happry to blast your brain with 2 watts of rf energy? Get some perpective. Do you really think you are more likely to get a nuclear power related disease than be run over by a car? As long as those idiots at greenpeace spread their misinformation, NP will fail to halt global warming – the wild weather will escalate. The world population and greed for energy is accelerating faster than windfarms can be built. The other option, is a cull. Now i have lots of ideas there. “No copy and paste”
The real function of nuclear plants is to produce Depleted Uranium and Plutonium, that is their main function, electricity is a by product by using the steam that is produced from the process.
I have put links to my previous posts on the dangers of nuclear power and nuclear power plants, the links are there for you to read like the pollution of plutonium in the Irish sea right up to the artic as well as plutonium in children’s teeth from Sellafield as well as other radioactive elements from there found in Miami etc and around the world and that is only one nuclear power plant.
Nuclear power is not safe and these plants pollute countries around the world as you can see from all my links.
NP is dangerous, full stop.
Reducing the population to a few hundred thousand over time would solve most of our issues.
Love an unintentional pun!
Nuclear is green
The ongoing floods and increase in frequency and power of winds are evidence of our changing climate due to global warming, where melting ice sheets are already impacting on the jet stream. We are one of the best countries in the world for wind energy and also trees grow in Ireland three times faster than in the rest of Europe so we could grow more trees to offset carbon emissions as Ireland has a mere 11% of land that is forestry compared to the EU average of 42%.
I read a report a few years ago that recommended planting a two kilometer deep band of forestry along the entire west coast which would increase temperatures by as much as two degrees across the country, not only would it reduce heating fuel consumption but create a proper sustainable renewable fuel source.
But like the ‘Spirit Of Ireland Project’……..too many vested interests will see it will never come to fruition.
Sadly you are probably right, there Al Ca, they will never start a real forestry initiative.
Farms are best used to produce food. Wind is not enough!!!!
Of course Buster, there has to be a mix of renewable energy but if Denmark can already produce 30% of its energy production from wind turbines, why not Ireland too.
Only 30%? And denmark has the most expnsive electricty in the EU. The other 70% has to come from somewhere
And your point is? Nuclear power is also clean energy. It is needed when the wind dont blow http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/11961424/Engineers-urge-SNP-to-drop-irrational-energy-policy.html
The 30% for Denmark is an average figure, on windy days it can be over 100% and they export the excess energy to other countries.
http://www.sciencealert.com/denmark-just-generated-140-of-its-electricity-demand-from-wind-power
In any event 30% is just the start, give them another few years and see the figure rise and rise. When the wind is not blowing new battery storage will suffice.
As regards Nuclear look at Hinkley in England it will cost at least £4.4 billion while critics warn it could rise to £45bn. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/29/hinkley-point-c-nuclear-power-station-cost-customers-4bn
NP is only apparently expensive at the moment because of the collapse in oil and gas prices. How could NP be expensive if France generates nearly 80% of it’s electricity from NP and has the cheapest electricity in Europe? There’s no one like a Greenwash advocate to bs with statistics.
That would be a good start but would still be nowhere near enough to get to a 95% reduction in emissions. That target can NOT be achieved without either nuclear, carbon storage or both.
We need to be realistic and intelligent about how we make such radical changes to our energy profile over the coming years. Ideology, even good ideology, won’t get us there without a large dollop of reality.
Check out elecricity prices in denmark. And yes, Danish wind is maxed out at 30%. There is the small issue of the other 70%
What about it? Scotland stupidly phasing out neuc. If you read the article more carefully, you will se that it was confined only for the 1st six months of 2014.
Greens are blind and deaf to facts. They only hear what they want to hear from pseudo-scientists.
I see you have a problem with fact.
So will any of you green rebutt this fact? On the flip side, France has the cheapest electricity in the EU, and they already Kyoto CO2 compliant. I wonder why?
Buster clean energy does not do the following… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_radiation_syndrome
30% is not “just a start”.
Denmark has been building windfarms for years. Thousands of them.
Their grid is saturated with wind energy. When there is a storm, sure, they briefly have 100% wind power. They dump the surplus at a discount to norway, sweden, at heavy discounts, because what is the point of importing energy that comes in brief bursts.
” should Denmark Island then wish to expand its wind generation further it would find itself on the slippery slope of diminishing returns, because the more wind generation it adds the more it has to curtail until eventually almost all of it is curtailed and no significant amount added”.
And dont ignore the fact that the Danish taxpayer has to subsidize the discounted surplus” – hence why their electricity is so expensive!
I agree that hydrogen bombs are dangerous.
And the other 70% ?
Take a look at @luisbaram’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/luisbaram/status/675072183157317639?s=09
Here is an intersting view. Take a look at @luisbaram’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/luisbaram/status/675072183157317639?s=09
I just realised who you are now Buster, you have set up another twitter account I see, I should have realised with the pro nuclear plant stance you have… I had a debate about nuclear energy with you before on here…
?? Yes, i do have a twitter account, just1.
http://www.epaw.org/documents.php?lang=en&article=cost15
“Wind farm constraint payments are out of control” I do wonder if this happens here as well?
So the real issue is not that the targets were unrealistic from day one but we are not paying enough foreign company’s to build wind farms in people’s back gardens. Is this not panic from the minister that the tree huggers in South Dublin won’t reelected Mr White. How are China and America getting on with their targets or did they see this agreement for what is was a furtile gester by Bertie to takes votes away for the greens. How does air travel connect into this whole discussion or does injecting Carbon straight into the higher atmosphere good for the planet. Theses are issues that Mr White can think over after the election when he is Labour Party leader sitting on his own is the opposition.
Green,
Denmark is well interconnected with its Nordic countries who pick up the slack when there’s no wind it too much wind. You cant compare us to them
We are interconnected with the UK!
Buster not in any significant way I think.
Minister White is deluded if he believes Ireland can reduce emissions by 95% without using nuclear energy. See for yourself by trying Britain’s simulator at my2050.decc.gov.uk .
He is disingenuous about nuclear – he said last year that we should have a nuclear debate before forming our energy policy, but then failed to make any effort to have that debate.
How does he know that nuclear is unpopular in Ireland? H never sought our opinion on the matter! Previous polls in TheJournal.ie resulted in a majority in favour of at least considering nuclear.
Ireland can reduce emissions by 95% if they reduce the population, that is the only way?
Close peat burning power stations asap and let Bord na Mona build the renewable energy they have in a folder atm.. Close Moneypoint before 2020. Painfull, but it has to be done and Ireland can keep its pride meeting the targets put down for 2020 and beyond !
Eric, I presume you live in Cloud Cuckoo Land? If we close Monypoint before 2020 the lights WILL go out.
Back to the stone age.
Your computer screen is a quantum physics nuclear device.
All energy on earth is nuclear. Coal stores the energy of the Hydrogen-bomb we call the sun.
The stupidity of the anti-nuclear crowd knows no bounds.
Coal kills more people every year than Hiroshima ever did.
The so-called greens think that nuclear is more dangerous than coal.
They do not work in coalmines.
So where’s the electricity coming from for these cars?
Even if we ran EVs directly off Moneypoint’s coal powered turbines (which actually supply less than 15% of grid power in Ireland) we’d still save emissions and money over petrol/diesel. Most EVs however charge at night when according to Eirgrid’s statistics (http://smartgriddashboard.eirgrid.com/#all) almost 50% of electricity came from renewables.
My BMW EV is between three and five times more efficient than a petrol or diesel vehicle. And quicker acceleration than an M3…. and more fun to drive…. and it costs less than €30 per 5000km to run….. and it’s cheaper to insure than a 1.6 focus….. and my next service is in 2017….
….yes cross, it is. But it’s also 3 times the price of an ICE car, and despite having the moolah to afford to buy it, you were handed taxpayer’s money as a grant to buy it. Not to mention no VRT either, despite you sharing roads with everyone else. ..do you not see the injustice in that ?
And as long as our begrudgary rates of BIK exist electric cars will remain a quaint oddity. Abolition of BIK on EVs would revolutionise Irelands motoring overnight
Where did you hear it’s more expensive than an ICE?
The diesel Nissan Pulsar is the equivalent ICE to the Leaf in Nissan’s range. It’s between €500 and €2000 more expensive than the Leaf.
If you are using the €4k scrappage Nissan are offering the Leaf starts at €17,500
Since launch in 2010 the price of the battery has come down substantially and €10k has been knocked off the price before grants. You can now get a 30kWh battery that does 200km in the real world.
The VRT exemption for EVs was abolished in 2012. It was replaced by a credit against VRT of €5k.
My EV was expensive, it has a carbon fibre chassis and twice the power to weight of the Leaf.
Between VRT and VAT the government got more than €25k of tax on the car at purchase. I got a €5k VRT credit and a €2.5k grant from SEAI. More than €17k net in tax.
I pay the road tax I owe same as every other vehicle, and there’s also excise duty and VAT on my electricity.
Environmentally speaking, the good a country of four or five million can do by meeting it’s renewable energy targets is irrelevant compared to the harm it has done, and will do, due to it’s contraception and abortion laws, past and present, respectively.
Gosh Gus!
Sure we import nuclear created energy. I dunno why they dont build nuclear stations deep undergeound surrounded by lead. That would be pure sure wouldn’t it be?
Nuclear generators are steam engines but the main purpose of a nuclear generator is not power but to make plutonium from uranium, plutonium to make nuclear bombs.
The by product just happens to be heat and a lot of nuclear waste and radiation…
The radiation is that lethal that the lead in the reactors have in some cases turned into gold, I always thought if you had enough sterling engines run by radioactive thorium working together you might have a cheap power plant???
After this sentence we have to assume you are emailing from a place for the bewildered, “the main purpose of a nuclear generator is not power but to make plutonium from uranium”???
William do you know any history or science at all?
Nuclear power plants would be too expensive to build, run and maintain just for producing electricity, the cost of the electricity would be too much, it would be crazy. Saying nothing about the cost of security?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-239
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium#Military_applications
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/may/18/armstrade.kosovo
Nuclear plants make more money from depleted uranium and plutonium than from making electricity and that was what the first and all nuclear plants are about William.
What utter tosh. Can you cite your sources?
Re security. So you are happy to buy in gas from russia, and oil from saudi rather than uranium from Australia. I repeat: check out the cost of electricity in france vs. denmark.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_terrorism
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/12/pakistan-nuclear-weapons-security-fears
Nuclear plants are prone to thief and terrorism, domestically and internationally, did you not know that?
http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2002/03/spring-weapons-cravens
http://www.cfr.org/homeland-security/targets-terrorism-nuclear-facilities/p10213
I can and could go on with more sources if you want?
Here is an article from Scientific American. James Hansen, from NASA, has been a leading scientist in making the dangers of Climate Change publicly known.
Greenwashers won’t want to read that one, william closed minds.
That interview is depressing. He’s a certifiable clown.
How can we not meet it when we have a coastline that could harness tidal power and surely put up enough wind turbines to get this done or should we keep burning liquidised dinosaurs forever because that’s going to last??
Take a look at @DogClimate’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/DogClimate/status/675055909849194496?s=09
Ireland doesn’t need nuclear, we are sparsely populated with light industry and agriculture.
However – China, India, US. Japan, Germany etc etc do need nuclear if they want clean energy and air to breath. Look at the air quality of Beijing, that mostly comes from coal-fired power plants. We need more nuclear on a global basis.
Cal Cryton, Ireland doesn’t need nuclear because we are sparsely populated and have light industry? Really? Do you know how much energy one “light industry” data centre uses? As much as a small town. And we have a large and growing number of such data centres. Modern civilisation is energy intensive. Ireland is energy intensive. We have sufficient population and energy consumption to justify one or more nuclear power plants built to a modern design. Notions that we can get this energy through Green tech is fanciful unless there is an extraordinary breakthrough in fundamental physics.
Hot News!
German Bean Sprout disaster kills more than the Chernobyl Disaster !!!!!
have your say