Nuclear power and climate crisis
about 4 hours ago
A chara, – As a life-long anti-nuclear campaigner, I was intrigued to read William Reville’s opinion piece in which he calls for the construction of nuclear plants on our island (“We need nuclear power to manage climate change”, Science, April 15th).
In just one sentence, Prof Reville dismisses the serious environmental concerns raised by the prospect of storing tonnes of nuclear waste for future generations to contend with.
Oddly, despite noting that “operational safety is no longer an issue”, not once is the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster mentioned. Yet just one week ago the Japanese government announced it would dump over a million tonnes of contaminated water into the sea in the aftermath of such an operational safety failure.
Nuclear power and climate change
about 5 hours ago
Sir, – We read with real interest William Reville’s opinion piece on Ireland needing nuclear power to manage climate change (“We need nuclear power to manage climate change”, Science, April 15th).
For Ireland to go for nuclear power would require not just spending billions on the technology, but also considerable resource in setting up an independent regulator and a waste agency for dealing with the radioactive waste that comes from the nuclear fission process.
Small modular nuclear reactors are being put forward as the panacea for the nuclear industry, but there is currently no agreed design that has been approved in Europe. They would only be cost-effective if being done in bulk and such reactors have safety, emergency planning and waste issues that all need to be considered. Instead, there is a growing number of peer-reviewed academic and industry reports that show that a 100 per cent renewable energy system is fea