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IRELAND IS ONE of seven EU countries that saw the biggest increase in young adults (25-34 years old) living with their parents between 2010 and 2019, according to research conducted by EU agency Eurofound.
The study’s publication coincided with the publication of census findings that show a drop in overall homeownership of 4% between 2011 and 2022.
Although the study shows that Ireland is among the worst performers in this area, the difficulty young Irish people have moving out of the family home fits into a wider trend across the EU in recent times.
“The age at which at least 50% of people in the EU were living outside their parental home increased from 26 to 28 between 2007 and 2019,” the report read.
In the EU as a whole, 29% of 25 to 34-year-olds lived with their parents in 2010, according to Eurofound. This share had increased to 31% by 2019.
For Ireland, the increase in this area was significantly higher than most of the EU, with the number of 25 to 34-year-olds living at home in Ireland, alongside Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Spain, rising by 6% or more in the same period.
The topic of young adults’ difficulty moving out was the subject of a debate in the Dáil yesterday, when Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns blamed the problem of decreased home-ownership among young people on the government and, in particular, Fine Gael.
“We’ve gone from young people aspiring to home ownership to finding it increasingly difficult to move out of their childhood bedrooms,” Cairns said during Leaders’ Questions.
“And yet you still claim with a straight face that Fine Gael is the party of home ownership. I don’t honestly know who you think you’re kidding but people have had enough of that kind of spin.
“You’ve now been in office for 12 years. At what point do you think you’d take some responsibility for the fact that your approach isn’t working? It’s difficult to know when you’ve yet to even acknowledge the fact that your approach isn’t working.”
She pointed to statistics which showed that the share of 25 to 34-year-olds who own their own home more than halved between 2004 and 2019, plummeting from just 60% to 27%.
However, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar defended the Government’s action on the issue and insisted he was a believer in home-ownership.
“I am somebody who believes in home-ownership. I believe no form of housing security is batter than home-ownership,” he said.
Varadkar did concede, however, that it is particularly difficult for young people to buy their own home in Ireland at present.
“Yes, I acknowledge that home-ownership has fallen in the period of the census between 2016 and 2022, but at 66% it is still the case that two-thirds of people in Ireland own their own home,” he said.
“I want that figure to go back up again. I would like to see it going back up towards 70%.
“I know that there is a generational divide and that many people in their 20s and 30s and even 40s are unable to purchase their own home at the moment.
“What we have seen in the past couple of months… is a very major uptake in the number of people buying their first home.”
Speaking to The Journal, Cairns claimed that housing was the most common issue brought up by her party’s constituents.
“Housing is the biggest issue that we, as politicians, are contacted about. You learn about some incredibly sad and upsetting cases when constituents, at the coal face of the housing disaster, contact constituency offices. The worst thing is – it doesn’t have to be like this. All of these people are being failed by the State.
“One of the most basic requirements in a functioning society is the provision of secure and affordable housing. Housing is supposedly this government’s biggest priority. It is also its biggest failure.”
When asked what the Social Democrats would do to change the situation for the better, Cairns said her party would “introduce a punitive tax on vacancy” and “dramatically increase the supply of social, cost-rental and affordable homes.”
Additionally, she said:
“We would boost the powers of state bodies to compulsorily purchase land; stop investing public money into private rental only developments and boost investment into affordable homes; increase the number of construction workers by reforming apprenticeship schemes; make much better use of modular technology, introduce penalties for developers who sit on planning permissions to boost land values and impose a windfall tax on profits when rezoned land is sold for huge private profit.”
“The Social Democrats would also actually spend the full housing budget. Incredibly, the government failed to spend €1 billion of its housing budget – in the middle of an unprecedented housing disaster. That kind of mismanagement would not happen on our watch.”
The debate around the subject of homeownership and living arrangements for young adults comes against the backdrop of an ongoing housing and homelessness crisis that has dominated much of the country’s political debate of late.
One of the key points of contention in the arguments over the situation has been the ban on no-fault evictions, which was lifted earlier this year.
A number of opposition parties have called for the ban to be reinstated but the government has insisted that doing so would not substantially alleviate the situation.
The cost of rent is another major factor in the debate and Census data published yesterday morning shows the increase in average rent paid to a private landlord between 2016 and 2022 was 37%, going from €199.92 to €272.91.
Homeless charities have consistently warned that more and more people from walks of life not usually associated with homelessness are availing of their services.
When the eviction ban was lifted, some of those charities predicted a “tsunami” of evictions.
That has not come to pass though as the number of eviction notices received in the first quarter of 2023 (4,753) was similar to the previous two quarters.
However, as the debate was at its height, other homeless charities predicted a slower rise, arguing that many people do not go directly into homelessness upon eviction, but instead end up staying with family or friends on a temporary basis.
Speaking to The Journal at the time the ban was being lifted, Focus Ireland’s Mike Allen said:
“For the single people with families, they go and live with somebody for a week or a month or several months. They didn’t immediately end up in homelessness the day after the eviction ban ended.
“We’re going to see slowly but steadily a rising tide over a period of five, six, seven months.”
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Weird poll. Should Ireland start using nuclear power?
We already use nuclear power. The EWIC interconnection between Ireland and wales flows inbound to Ireland, doesn’t it?
yep.
Ireland imports between 85% of our energy. 97% of this is fossil fuels and 2% is electricity which I imagine includes nuclear generated.
This massive dependence on imports is pathetic really considering the future instability of global energy supplies. the european average on import dependency is 55%
We should build and just put it in Leitrim or somewhere underpopulated, or even build it under water. be grand.
The question should be ‘should Ireland consider exporting electricity generated by nuclear power’ the population of Ireland is too small to think about nuclear power for just Irish domestic use, we would need to weigh up the Economic practicalities of investing in nuclear electricity generation. They should be considering every other type of reusable power sources including waste incinwration before they go nuclear.
If we are importing 85% of our energy needs. We are not too small to consider nuclear energy
One nuclear power station would provide 80% of our energy needs. It would offset our carbon footprint and as much as people might like to argue it, it’s the cleanest reliable energy we have.
Depending on the size of it, it would be a cheaper alternative (if one is ever built on budget!) that the excessive wind farm production in the country,
I think NIMBYism would take over though if any were planned. Imagine being the TD who “let them” build a nuclear station in your area.
Are ya mad? Have you seen the cost of nuclear power!? It’s a complete scam when building, decommissioning and waste processing is taken into account. Add to that the price per MWh the government would have to guarantee to the plant. In the UK this is £92.50, compared to £72.50 for renewables. Cheaper and more convenient solutions already exist between clean fossil fuels and renewables.
Not that I like the idea, but I’d settle for living beside a waste incinerator before even considering a nuclear plant in our country. No way. I saw a documentary once on a British country town, incredibly accepting payment for allowing the company to bury barrels of nuclear waste under local fields. Imagine living with that forever? No wonder the UK imports most of its food. With so many alternative options and conservation, we can wait for a less toxic choice. Very glad that we still have the choice.
We have no fossil fuels and wind isn’t reliable. What solutions do you have in mind?
Joseph, the scalability of wind power is remarkably low to say the least. It’s inefficient for the cost, unreliable and takes up a large amount of real estate per MWh produced.
UK imports most of its food because even at max capacity they can only feed half their population.
Economically there is just no argument whatsoever and anyone who works in the industry knows this, nuclear power is incredibly capital expensive, the plants have become slowly more safe and efficient but the capital costs are just astronomical and that’s just the construction phase, the costs of maintenance, raw materials, transmission and disposal are sky high also. You need a high guaranteed price plus a massive aggregated population like London to justify it. It’s just a non-runner for now here and the foreseeable future. Our energy sources have diversified over the last 20 years and diversification is key in the volatile energy industry, particularly with a small low density population
Welcome to the 21st centuary my friend! We have lots of solutions like tidal, wave, solar and wind power, point of use and distributed generation, and when these aren’t producing sufficient power distributed battery storage and demand side response. And although we don’t have our own source of fossil fuel, we have been importing it for decades, there’s no reason why that can’t continue while we transition to a better solution.
Ah feck off Jason. If you had your way there’d be a gun in every baby’s hand.
Yes because if you disagree with someone on one issue then you can disregard what they say on everything else.
Joseph, you say “We have lots of solutions like tidal, wave, solar and wind power, point of use and distributed generation, and when these aren’t producing sufficient power distributed battery storage and demand side response.” None of these are actual real solutions yet. Tidal? Solar (in Ireland?). Wave? None of these work on any large or sustainable scale. Wind is expensive and intermittent. It requires back up by fossil plants. Battery storage for an industrial society. Maybe but a long time away yet. Nuclear actually works but none of the solution you have offered are proved to work at all in a sustainable fashion.
It is really remarkable to see people so worried about the safety of the planet knocking nuclear power. It is the safest and greenest solution available in the medium term. The consequences of not using it will be increased carbon release into the area and increased climate change. It is by a country mile the lesser of all the available evils, assuming of course that you wish to continue to run a modern industrial energy intensive civilisation.
Jason, Denmark produces 42% of its energy from wind power
Many British nuclear power stations were in fact dual use stations designed to reprocess nuclear fuel used in weapons and even produce nuclear weapons grade material. The design of these sites was poor and they produced an awful lot of dangerous waste. Modern reactors do not produce these large amounts of waste and indeed some designs produce none, such as the BN-800 breeder reactor. Not that there is no risk – there is always risk. Even France, which generates 75% of its power from Nuclear energy and is often held up as an example of how to do nuclear power right, hasn’t been 100% nuclear accident free. But the only 100% safe form of power generation is no power generation.
Joseph you are right but the costs are even less here €70/MWh – I suppose £ is falling!!
I hate wind! Give me rain any day! Surely there must be a way of using rain to generate electricity. Hell we could supply Half the effing world!!!
or we could but in the middle of Dublin on bull Island. nice empty space with no one living there
Yes more accurate question would have been “should Ireland build a nuclear power station?” My view is the economics don’t support it unless there is a significant technical breakthrough that reduces cost of construction
Peter King writes(and I’m sure he is an energy expert) ‘One nuclear power station would provide 80% of our energy needs.’…well I wouldn’t like to be stuck in central Dublin when that trips out 80% of our power! it would make the New York Northeast blackout of 1965 seem like a blip.
Fiona, the UK has been reliant on food imports since long before nuclear power appeared on the horizon. Nothing to do with nuclear waste and everything to do with a chaotic industrial revolution.
Peter King: and the most dangerous and the source of power about which we have the LEAST knowledge! Get real!
Wave energy
Suggestion for a poll: Do you still have your iodine tablets?
No, but I still have a sturdy table to sit under.
They expired years ago. Talk about a waste of money
If Ireland did decide to go nuclear, it would have to be planned, built and run by outside entities.
I’m sorry, but Ireland can’t run a bath without fecking it up.
Fully agree!
But you will get clowns who will protest and say that our energy security is being sold off to the highest bidder,and that energy bills will skyrocket,
We’ve some right moanbags in Ireland that just can’t see the bigger picture!
Fallout Boy will save us if anything goes wrong.
MY EYES ! DE GOGGLES DO NOTHING !
Jiminy jillikers!
I grew up about 10 miles from a nuclear power station and there’s not much wrong with me that could possibly be ascribed to that.
People worry about nothing.
I’m not sure about that, you kinda look like a South Park character
Details.
Yes it’s simply fear-mongering from a position of ignorance…
It’s pronounced nucleeuur marge
I once read that if a single human farted continuously into a condensed container for 25 – 30 years, it would generate enough pressure to equate to an average nuclear bomb.
Pointless and only slightly related tea-time fact
Eat a prawn vindaloo, get into said container and let us know how you get on.
Looking forward to your report in 25-30 years !
PS – Don’t bring matches
Nonsense, sir – Westminster is still very much structurally intact.
Nice :)
With all these terror attacks around lately? Sure, What could possibly go wrong!
Well, when you look at what a meltdown did at Chernobyl, what a massive earthquake and tsunami did at Fukushima and generally add up all of the deaths resulting from nuclear accidents… why would they bother?
The horrible truth is that you can kill more people a plane or a bus for a fraction of the effort.
“add up all of the deaths resulting from nuclear accidents”
The number of deaths attributed to traditional fossil fuels is massive, due to the air pollution they put out when burned, compared to the number caused by nuclear meltdowns.
I agree, and that’s before you add in the deaths associated with the mining and drilling industries. I think it was George Monbiot who said something to the effect that nuclear power kills a modest number of people when it breaks, fossil fuels power kill millions when it’s working.
Excellent Declan. I agree.
Great quote, Declan. I hadn’t heard it before.
Look at the mess that was made of trying to setup Irish water, and now they want to add more chemicals to the water to offset the cost of replacing lead pipes. Can you imagine what would happen if it was a nuclear power plant?! “Sure don’t mind that thing, we can do without that but, it’s too expensive, and sure don’t half the country have iodine tablets, be grand”…..BOOM
So much nonsense in just one comment. Back to school for you.
I’m pretty sure those Iodine tablets have long expired.
they are not trying to offset the cost of replacing lead pipes, they are trying to negate the effects of the lead on the water until they can replace all the lead pipes, which will take years. You can’t even begin to compare the setup of Irish water to the possible set up of a nuclear power plant.
Well if the powers that be can’t even set up a utility company, what chance would they have of planning, building and running a nuclear power station?
the powers that be would not be building it, it would be a private company, not state owned IF it ever happened.
Shakka1244, the ESB would be well capable of running a nuclear power plant. So would many modern private companies. I cannot see a non-State owned company running nuclear in Ireland. The capital cost is too high and there are too many risks. essentially the State would have to provide guarantees. I wold rather give it to the ESB to run. At last they are in the business for the long haul and have a company culture based on engineering and an appreciation of the risks.
Oer John R sounds like the decision making process for making Eircode useless and giving the parcel market advantage to the semi state An Post…
You are missing many details.
the board of the French energy company EDF agreed to go ahead with the build. The board vote was 10 to 7 and one senior board member resigned because some board members felt the project was too large a threat to the company.
The new UK Business Secretary Greg Clark yesterday delayed the project and said the government will put out another review and is delaying the project further.
Key reasons for the delay include the agreed £92.50 per megawatt-hour as this amount to a 30 billion subsidy that the UK taxpayer will have to pay over the coming decades.
There is more general concern in the UK that it is being built by company majority owned by the French Government with a significant investment from Chinese firms.
But how will they refine the nuclear material required for Trident if they have no nuclear power stations? (One of the real cost benefits of having both, of course Ireland has no warheads)
Fun fact: With a complete combustion or fission, approx. 8 kWh of heat can be generated from 1 kg of coal, approx. 12 kWh from 1 kg of mineral oil and around 24,000,000 kWh from 1 kg of uranium-235. Related to one kilogram, uranium-235 contains two to three million times the energy equivalent of oil or coal.
So nuclear will be a part of future energy production, there’s no doubt about it.
What if somehow we could harness the power from a bolt of lightning?
If my calculations are correct, 1.21 gigawatts of electricity
In fairness, 1kg highly enriched U-235 is much more valuable (and more expensive to produce) than 1kg of coal or mineral oil, so it would want to produce far more kWh/kg.
If it is cost effective then yes. It’s extremely environmentally friendly.
Yes, nuclear power is either incredibly environmentally friendly, or it’s very much not…
PS: How would we feel if people in the 16th century had been using nuclear power, and we were still having to store their nuclear waste for the electricity they used around 500 years ago? That’s what we’re doing for people of the 26th century.
As opposed to what we’re doing now, Type17, destroying the atmosphere due to the reliance on dirty fossil fuels.
My educated guess is windmills and stuff
We’re going to run out of fossil fuels eventually and wind energy is not 100% efficient not even 50% so we need an alternative source
we will have to eventually, we cant keep burning coal, and harvesting out wetlands for peat. I’m all for wind turbines, I can see a pair of very large ones from my home, however when the wind doesn’t blow, they don’t work.
It’s not the nuclear part that’s the problem, its that they put it in direct contact with water, such as PWR Pressurised Water Reactors or BWR boiling water reactors. When things go wrong it results in release of radioactive steam such as three mile island, or water breaking down into hydrogen and explosion as in Fukushima. Water based reactors are just unsafe which is why there is interest in alternatives such as Milton salt. They are still prototypes though. So I would rather wait for a safer reactor design.
“Molton salt”
We already have safer reactor designs that move away from the BWR design completely. Look up Gen IV reactors.
Yes just checked and the one I mentioned is one of those new designs but they are still prototypes and not expected to be ready to build until 2030. We can’t wait I suppose.
I prefer fossil fuels. they are natural and come from the earth. Nuclear power is not natural
Telephones, lifejackets and central heating are not natural either.
Nothing more natural than nuclear power. Just look at the sun. Well, don’t look for too long.
In fairness though, the sun is 22 billion miles away from our last coast.
*east
Yes fossil fuels are the future…
fossil fuels are the future. if there was an alternative it would be here by now. no fossil fuels then no car and no heating. period
You mine uranium from the ground Stephen. How is that not natural?
“Nuclear power is not natural”. False. Uranium, the metal used in nuclear fission is an element on the periodic table of elements. To say not natural, is the same as saying breathing oxygen is not natural.
“If there was an alternative it would be here by now”…if only all the great scientists and innovators had an attitude like yours!
“fossil fuels are the future. if there was an alternative it would be here by now” agh we have, nuclear.
There are cleaner alternatives, they just need a lot of investment to set-up. But there’s no political will anywhere to do so.
Wave energy, hydro-electricity, solar, wind,(even if not very efficient) etc.
Fossil fuels can be replaced by nuclear energy for the grid and hydrogen in personal transport. The first commercial hydrogen-powered car with performance and range comparable to a standard commuter car with a combustion engine is due to hit the market this year.
condoms are not natural. hiv is natural
The ptoblem with hydrogen cars is that it cost a lot to produce hydrogen. Iceland as hydrogen cars. They produce free electricity, from which they make cheap hydrogen, from their hot springs
Do_The_Bort_Man, you didn’t learn much in school about constructing a logical argument, did you?
Smoke is a natural result of combustion. I wouldn’t breathe too much of it though.
Objections in Britain as well. Government have postponed signing until after Parliamentary recess and the Tory conference. It might not happen.
The objections relate mostly to who got the contract and the agreed price rather than the merits of nuclear energy.
The much smarter option is to start building wave and tidal power generators. They are less visible than wind farms (which should also be built offshore) and produce a more reliable stream of energy (especially tidal).
We have so much ocean and coastline that we could export incredible amounts of electricity if done correctly.
Nuclear power is a lot safer than it used to be, but still produces a waste product that needs to be stored securely for 10000 years.
It is also possible to infect a plant with a computer virus to set the station into meltdown while displaying the message that everything is working normally. (This type of virus has already been created and found, google ‘stuxnet’, the name given to it)
Interesting how you can say tidal power is more reliable. The tide comes in and out twice a day and the window for power generation is probably 12 hours per staggered into two 6 hour shifts that move every day. A great idea if everyone was to arrange their daily activities around the tides. A kind of “biodynamics”. Possibly a movement in the making…
@Andy K
Problem with offshore wind turbines is the cost per MWhr is more than double onshore production and almost double nuclear.
Tidal and wave run into a similar problem due to working in very inhospitable locations.
Think about that one Tom, that’s the dead times, the rest of the time the tide is coming in or going out.
We can hardly handle a water supply without adding a nuclear power supply to the mix!
CD we can perfectly well manage a water supply providing we are prepared to invest in it. Water treatment, waste water removal, water storage and distribution are expensive and capital intensive. We’re simply not prepared to invest as a society and it will come back to haunt us. Irish Water was an attempt to overcome this deficiency. The main problem people had with it was the billing and its private nature. All large scale distribution utilities ranging from electricity to gas are run by national utility models. That is what modern industrial societies are about. Ireland could manage nuclear power without difficulty just like we manage things like air traffic control and electricity generation and distribution without problems. If you have an argument against nuclear (and there are many) please do not use a version of “shure we’re too stupid to run it”. We’re not.
Who’s going to pay for it!!!
Who pays for fossil fuels and wind power?
If you want to be completely cynical about it, the best place to build a nuclear station in Ireland would be the Cooley peninsula in Louth. Given our prevailing South Westerly winds, in the event of a fallout this would have the minimal impact on Ireland (the state, not the island in this case). of course the UK would be frigged, but they’ve never had any issue with placing Nuclear stations as close as possible to our shores.
It was suggested by another commenter but we really must look at our efficient use of what we have.
Despite being one of the wettest countries we waste allot of water. Water harvesting shouldn’t really be the exception. If everyone harvested water we may not need to produce as much and that could help everyone’s costs.
Further we have a catch 22 where any push in wind technology (our most obvious option for me although not a complete solution) away from non renewables is met with opposition.
Asking someone from the renewable energy sector for comment was always going to bring up negative comments. We would put to many cartels and monopoly’s out of business with a nuclear power plant in Ireland. Talk about overkill for a population of 4.5 million. Would we sign a contract promising to pay 3 times the current energy cost for 20+ years. EDF has not one new nuclear power station running yet. A bit worrying but the British energy shortage is huge only getting worse every year. We have no power shortages or rolling blackouts. With the Levys already inflicted for renewable energy companies could we afford another one for nuclear? start paying now for something people in 20 years will use. We need to get energy smart maybe using agri byproducts to generate power. Wind has not proven itself cost effective, solar may prove different but it’s still to expensive. Biomass power station is possibly a more stable solution for Ireland.
No moral or environmental objection to it, but especially for a country as small as Ireland a nuclear plant just doesn’t make much economic sense. Once up and running they’re fine but are enormously capital intensive to set up, we’d be paying millions in subsidies for decades, those funs would probably be be better spent on the more flexible forms of environmentally friendly energy like Solar, wind and wave
Its a fair point Ciaran, however the population and economy of the country is expanding and hopeful will continue to expand. Future Ireland will at some point need that amount of energy production. Also any excess can be sold to the UK. The costs are considerable, but so are the gains.
The Poll is a bit misleading as we do use nuclear power as we import from the East west interconnector. This is 500MW of which at least 25% of the UKs power is baseload nuclear. Also we have just signed an agreement with France for an inter-connector. There are 75% nuclear. The size of the UK plant is 3200MW which is more electricity than we use for large parts of the day. So any plant would need to be appropriately sized for an Irish context. Moneypoint needs replacement in 2025 so if Nuclear of 900MW is an option it should be considered. It should be pointed out also that the arguments about wind or nuclear or other renewables are missing the way the grid works. There is a fuel mix and if you look at the UKs or France system they integrate renewables whilst having nuclear. It’s not usually one versus another but a portion of each.
We should build our own Nuclear station. It will never happen though. Too many NIMBYs out there. Just look at the incinerator fiasco. It would be 10 times worse with a nuclear power plant
That’s a HUGE NO. The big powers are looking at Fusion power which is clean and virtually unlimited….they are running a prototype reactor in France right now. If we wait 20+ years we can go this road and avoid having tons of highly dangerous radioactive after waste buried somewhere in Ireland…imagine the kick up from the nimbys then….not to mention the virtual destruction of our Green image for agriculture and tourism. Besides Ireland has the best potential wind power potential in Europe and this can easily supply our needs.
Wind power can’t easily supply our needs. It’s highly inefficient and reliant on inconsistent weather conditions to maintain supply. You’d need to practically cover the west coast with turbines to meet national grid needs and this will also lead to the ‘virtual destruction’ of our green image.
Other methods are either nowhere near maturation (fusion), highly pollutant (fossil fuels) or highly inefficient (wind, solar etc).
Fact1 wind power can’t be inefficient because you are not putting any fuel in to get power out.
Fact 2 If you wanted to power the UK as well then you might need to cover the west coast but that’s obviously a little exaggeration on your part
Fact 3 Because nuclear by nature has a large output it requires a large back up of either fossil or wind power. There is always a minimum redundancy in power distribution otherwise we’d have regular blackouts.
Fact 4 Nuclear is by far the greatest capital outlay including new power lines, waste disposal and decommissioning costs…nuclear waste may remain active and dangerous for 1000s of years but reactors have a much shorter life. So can we put you down for a nuclear dump in your backyard?
And nuclear is inflexible, enormously expensive and we’d be stuck with it for decades. No need to make the perfect the enemy of the good, Wind will never supply all our needs on it’s own but combined with other renewable sources it can massively reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and closed cycle gas turbine plants can much more easily scale their output up or down to fill in the rest than nuclear could. It’s a reasonable stop gap until a more long term solution is developed,
Just a clarification. The problem with wind power is not its’ efficiency. It is a problem of availability. If the wind does not blow you need an equivalent back-up that can be ramped up to order (usually very expensive gas turbines). the second problem is that the wind energy is generated when the wind blows and not when it is needed. For example, at night the power consumption is low and the wind does not stop blowing. In mitigation the new trend for electric cars will address this somewhat as most people can charge their batteries at night when other demands are low, hence improving the “availability” of the wind energy.
One thing that needs to be taken into account is that our “base” energy load in Ireland is provided by coal generation, which is not really suitable for quick turndown. Replacing this with as reliable a source will be a real challenge.
Jason is correct and the arguments against nuclear are wrong. A great deal of wishful thinking on this topic. The practical alternatives to nuclear do not exist at present. Our real alternatives are: persist with mainly fossil for about 30 years OR invest in smaller scale nuclear and other technologies (which could include green). The risk assessment favours the latter in my view. It is the least worst option out of a pretty bad range of options – assuming of course that you want to maintain an industrial civilisation.
The main argument against it is that it’s not and never will be cost effective in Ireland, how exactly is that wrong? It’s all well and good to say we just invest in “small scale” nuclear but there is an enormous cost to this both initially and over the lifetime of the plant which would be several decades. They’re completely inflexible in terms of price and energy output, you can’t just turn them off.
Tom, no one is suggesting we rely on wind power soley, no more than nuclear. The simple fact is apart from the nimby people, who will be much louder against nuclear, wind is a win win situation for whatever percentage power it generates even up to 25% as in Denmark. We have interconnectors with Britain to take the same percentage of wind power not being generated here at any time from them and give it back to them at any time because they will always need it. Nuclear will not supply all our needs either unless we are prepared to invest in half a dozen which we clearly cannot afford. By the time Ireland could actually construct and get a nuclear power station up and running and get past all the planning and standards and objections nuclear fusion will be here and we won’t need it or it’s toxic waste. If we stand by our prohibition of nuclear power under Electricity Regulation Act, 1999 (Section 18) then we will in time pass this mad stage and retain our green image even stronger into the future. Industrial ages pass and new cleaner types evolve…look at Britain’s & Holland’s and Germany’s polluted and destroyed
indutrial wastelands now being turned green. Besides if we went nuclear privately we’d have a monopoly and energy prices would jump or they would abandon the business and leave it to the state and if the state runs it we’ll have another Irish water institution on our hands. Leave well enough alone I say…we are not an industrialised nation and should also be looking at increasing our energy use efficency also.
John your second option ‘invest in smaller scale nuclear and other technologies (which could include green)’ could just as easily read ‘invest in future green technologies and hold out for new fusion type energies’. We have the time…Germany, a huge economic power, has formally announced it is moving away from Nuclear energy production and you can be sure they will lead the way with far better options which other countries can follow.
Fusion power is 20 years away and always will be!
“Germany, a huge economic power, has formally announced it is moving away from Nuclear energy production”
Yes, it’s being replaced with coal. Hardly a visionary approach.
Pink Panther…you sound like a parrot…I already stated Fusion is 20 years away, but so what, we can bridge the gap with wind until then or build much cleaner and efficient fossil fuel plants also.
Germany has built some new much cleaner coal powered stations but many of these plants were given the green light before pollution standards were increased and there is a rush to finish them before it gets even tighter but either way Germany has a large coal reserve Ireland does not. The aim is to reduce each countries overall carbon output and that includes cleaner cars and industrial and agricultural emmisions. Germany can make up in other ways for it’s coal plants but the fact remains the same it is turning away from Nuclear!
I would have over the years been entirely against the idea, but given that there are nuclear power stations in the Uk, which pose the same level of risk to Ireland, that one located here would, it seems a moot point. The limited roll out of windturbines around the country has impacted on the landscspe and only benefited the private companies involved, there is little benefit to consumers. But if we are to go the nuclear route, we need to rethink rather than create cheaper electricity for which we can be charged for at an ever increasing rate! I would like to see the possible adoption of Nuclear power turned into an opportunity to do something positive rather than create yet another private money tree. How about the state funding it and retaining control in perpetuity, with a prohibition on any privatisation in the future. No jobs for the boys, run and operated by the brightest and the best people possible, both Irish nationals or non-nationals. No charge for domestic electricity! That’s what I said, no charge! Electric Ireland would still be able to charge business customers and export the surplus as payment for maintaining the esb infustructure.
Nuclear would allow the eventual switching of all ground transport to electric
If they could make it economically viable for a small country like Ireland ,then id be all for it. THat new Hinkley point plant could power the entire country by itself. These new plants are incredibly safe. I just fear the cost of construction will spiral way out of control by a factor of billions which would put us under pressure.
Finland, Slovenia small countries that have nuclear and can afford it.
The Finnish plant is years behind schedule and billions over budget. They need to get the construction costs right before i’d get on board.
Jesus we can’t protect vulnerable old people from criminals in Ireland so what hope have we of protecting a nuclear power plant.
Paddies can’t do nuclear.
Neither can Hinkley Bottom now?
I think the astronomical costs associated with nuclear power would negate from ever building one here considering that we don’t have the population. I have no problem with nuclear power per se, but you do wonder why so many countries use it when it’s so expensive to produce electricity using this method? Finally as another poster has already stated, we should be building incinerators instead, as one incinerator produces enough electricity for 50,000 homes if not more.
A nuclear power plant wouldn’t be cost effective in ireland, however we do import nuclear energy from the interconnector
They couldn’t build the port tunnel correctly never mind a nuclear reactor .
Absolutely not. Going by our past record our government could F–k up a wet dream. I could right a list but we all know them.
Why not invest in renewables instead? Renewable energy isn’t toxic and doesn’t require waste removal/storage.
No we should start using solar power
More cash for the lads. who would own it? china? the french? who can we sell to with no return?
who cares if it could kill us all, as long as the politicians get to call around and offer us €50 off our bill
with a handshake and a wink. All round, horrible idea. It will probably go ahead…
We could use the nuclear generators they use in nuclear submarines. one could supply a town the size of waterford. very safe as they can be used in a submarine
As safe as these?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_nuclear_submarines
Definitly… anyone got 18 billion for a design that’s never been made to work yet..
The cleanest and more efficient and instant way to generate power is by hydro using the power of water either by damning a river or building a reservoir ,,With all the rivers we have in Ireland small and large hydro stations would ease the burden and the last few years we have seen the amount of water that has engulfed the country ,,Wind Farms are unreliable except of the west coast , Because you need a power station “spinning ” in the background .”Spinning ” means the station is running burning fuel but not producing electricity cost == £40,000 Euro a hour ,New home designs to save energy with solar panels on the roofs , Window glass that can transfer heat into heating water ,,
If it can be done cost effectively which EDF have shown it can’t.
I think Ireland should invest in nuclear fusion research instead of fission which is the common one. Discovering how to produce more energy then being consumed by fusion is still a mystery, but sooner or later someone will. A discovery of this magnitude would take Ireland to next century in terms of development.
Germany is getting rid of them.
Sum ass Irish getting them.
51% of people want to give our children cancer?
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/nov/30/greenpolitics.health
http://www.independent.ie/regionals/droghedaindependent/news/study-shows-plutonium-in-uk-kids-teeth-from-sellafield-27113140.html
Nuclear plants are not to make electricity but to make plutonium for nuclear bombs, to enrich uranium. Where do people think that waste will go? Nuclear waste is the worst of all waste and scientists do not know how to deal with it because it is that toxic. Plutonium ends up in the air, in the sea, in the food, in the water. The metal is toxic both due to radiation and due to the metal itself.
Where did the nonsense of it being clear come from as nothing pollutes more than nuclear?
We already are using Nuclear.
It’s nucular
How is the research going in Nuclear Fusion these days (Atoms are joined)? – Nuclear Fusion is more cleaner and safe, but i remember from college days it still wast economically viable as the process involved high energy input greatly in excess of the low energy output. Also it wasn’t politically popular as it would eventually wipe out the need for oil as a main energy source. The present Nuclear plants are Nuclear Fission plants (atoms are split) leading to dangerous chain reactions.
We could buy up Britains old nuclear submarines and plug them into the grid….it would be grand..!!
Irish Water have been given the contract to build the first nuclear power station in Ireland ,sure what could go wrong .?????
Will it mean cheaper bills ,?
No, because nuclear waste is the most expensive form of waste about, there is no safe way to store it and your talking hundreds of thousands of years of toxic waste.
For anyone with 90 min to spare, watch ‘Pandoras promise’ on YouTube. Very interesting and dispels a lot of the myth and fear around nuclear power
have your say