Des O Malley and Nuclear Power - The Facts

Jeremy Bugler examines the implications of the Irish decision to join the world's exclusive nuclear club.

THE GOVERNMENT will shortly take a decision that may be as momentous as Ireland's en try in to the European Community. It is whether to join the countries that generate part of their energy from nuclear power.

Des O'Malley, Minister for Industry and Commerce, is likely to re-affirm, after some preliminaries, an earlier decision to build a nuclear power station at Carnsore Point, Co. Wexford.

Such are the birth pangs 'and the delivery fees of nuclear reactors that it will take at least ten years, and doubtless more than £350m at today's prices, for Ireland to join the nuclear nations.

Des O'Malley, speaking at the Fianna Fail Ard Fheis last month, called for a full national debate on the issue, at the same time indicating that he personally is a nuclear enthusiast.

While Ireland chews over this crucial decision, the world nuclear industry is in a state of chaos. Nuclear reactor companies in the United States, Britain, Canada and Germany have almost no domestic business at all; civil courts have obstructed the operation of power companies (what the Americans call "utilities"); the price of nuclear power has sky-rocketed; nuclear energy has suddenly become a political issue with massive demonstrations in many counntries; and many of the reactors themselves have shown a persistent tendency not to work well. Virtually the only customers for reactors today are developing countries.

It has even been suggested, by one eminent nuclear critic on whom President Carter has relied, that nuclear power is dead, but dead like a dinosaur shot in the head, with so many ganglia and nerve endings out at its tail and extremities, that it still thrashes about. One day, the news will reach the tail: the head's dead.

The questions are: Is Ireland,' coming late into the nuclear game, going to be sold a pig-in-the-poke? Is Ireland going to buy an expensive machine the country doesn't need, that may not work, and will bring new hazards to Ireland? Or will it be an investment in an energy source that will lessen dependence on imported oil which will ensure that the country can proggress economically and industrially.

Most of the issues about Ireland and nuclear power can be examined by taking statements from Des O'Malley's recent speeches. He says Ireland needs it. Does she? He says nuclear energy is cheaper than coal. Is it? And so on. But there's one issue to which no one in Ireland has made any reference, and it is-factually relevant. This must be dealt with first.

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O'Malley ignores the terrorist Factor

- In November 1972, three men with guns and grenades hijacked a Southern Airlines DC-9 and threatened to crash it into a reactor at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee if their demabds were not met.

- In March 1973, Argentine guerrillas seized control of a reactor under construction, painted its walls with political slogans and left, taking the guards' weapons.

- A former official in the US navy underwater demolition programme testified to Congress that he " could pick three to five former underwater demolition or Green Beret men at randon and sabotage virtually any nuclearreactor in the country... The amount of radioactivity released would be of catastrrophic roportions"

- In 1974, Werner Twardizik, a West German MP, joined a your of the huge reactor at Bilbis, carrying a two-foot bazooka under his jacket. He toured the world's largest operating reactor with the weapion undetected and presented the bazooka to the plant's director when the tour ended.

- Two French reactors were bombed by terrorists in 1975.

- Between 1969 and 1976, there were 99 cases of threatened or actual violence against nuclear plants un the US.

- In 1977, Basque separatists attacked a part-built nuclear reactor in Spain. They promised to return.

So far, no reactor has been seriously damaged by attack, but this luck may not hold. Terrorists have appreciated that nuclear reactors are prime targets; a successful attack would not only disrupt power supplies, it could release radiation leading to thousands of deaths and contamination of a huge area of land. Des O'Malley does not indicate that he has realised this threat. But for the IRA or UDA, the rpresence of a reactor in Ireland might change the game.

Ireland is one country where terrorism is a weekly and daily experience. A threat against a reactor. or a seizure of nuclear materials, would give terrorists in Ireland a leverage dar more powerful than anything else in the country. What would a Governmnent say if gunmen who had taken over the Carnsore Point reactor control room, demanded release of all prisoners from Portlaoise?

Nothing said by the government so far, indicates that this threat has even occurred to them.

Des O'Malley, however,has covered many of the other questions about nucelar power in Ireland. As he says, he has relied principally on the ESB to give facts, figures and assessments.

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O'Malley is wrong about alternative energy sources

Des O'Malley says: Ireland needs new energy sources to replace imported oil, on which she is dangerously reliant.

He is right. Ireland is about 80 per cent dependent on imported oil for alll of her energy needs. Oil is the fuel for all transport (taking 1,56 million tons) and oil provides two thirds of the fuel for electricity generation (taking 1.3 million tons in 1977). Currently, there is a glut of oil in the world, but this is probably an absurditiy that presages very high oil prices in the future. No one knows quite how long oil will be available at reasonable prices, but O'Malley was right when he told the Sarsfield Fianna Fail Cummann iin Limerick at the end of January, that "there is a broad consensus of opinion at present that the demand for oil will probably outstrip production in the the next two decades, if not sooner." Most experts say - "Sooner". Ireland's power stations waste valuable oil, partly because oil in the future will be needed for those functions for which it is hard to think of other fuels: transport, some industrial processes and agricultural uses of oil for machinery. Most energy experts then would agree that Ireland needs to reduce the dependence of her power stations on oil, and find alternatives.

The alternatives are essentially: coal, nuclear, hydro, peat, gas, and the emerging 'renewable energies' such as solar power, wind power, wave power and geothermal energy. Why is the Government favouring nuclear?

O'Malley says: Ireland's gas, so far discovered, is not a large find and although much of it will be burnt in ESB power stations, it has better uses.

The Kinsale natural gas find can provide 12 per cent of Ireland's energy needs, a notable amount, but gas is very high quality fuel, which is wasted when burnt in power stations. The process means that two-thirds of the gas's energy is dissipated by turning it into electricity. Gas is best kept as a feedstock for industrial materials and fertilisers. Some, however, can be burnt, as the ESB intends to do.

O'Malley says: "We cannot expect very much" from wind power, solar, wave, and tidal power "in the foreeseeable future."

Here he expresses the conventional view about the new energies, which is being challenged by many experts as very rapid progress is being made, especially in solar, wind and wave energy. American scientists.at the Solar Energy Research Institute at Golden, Colorado, have shown that they are meeting very stiff economic targets for solar power set them by the American government. Not only are solar panels installed on t'he roofs of houses coming down in price a-nd going up in poppularity, but astonishing strides are being taken with "photo-voltaics", or the solar cells that fuel most American satellites. Solar scientists claim that photo-voltaics will start to be competiitive with other energy sources in about a decade.

Houses totally powered by solar equipment have been built as far north as Ottawa, which has a much less favourable climate than Ireland. Ireland is extraordinarily well-suited for wave-power generation. Wave-power research is at an advanced stage in Britain. The idea is to extract some of the energy from waves: a typical Atlantic wave is about ISO metres long, and if half of the power from just one metre could be extracted, it would provide the electricity for 45 Americans, 130 Irish or 500 Chinese at present consumption rates.

Five projects are advancing in Britain, one of them using a kind of stubby aerofoil or 'duck' that would be moored with others along a common backbone. Groups of these ducks would be moored out at sea off the coasts and, by rising and falling with the waves, would send energy back along a cable undersea.

The configuration of Ireland's coasttline, with its major cities and towns O'Malley says: The trouble with coal is that it's tricky to handle, dirty to burn and because it's labour intensive, it's going to go up in price.

So far as he goes, O'Malley is on sure ground. He also said recently that coal technology is well proven - there are large and stable supplies, and indeed the ESB are doing some studies for him on the feasibility of building a major coallfired power station.

Coal has other advantages. New technology on coal-burning, called 'fluidised-bed ' has brought remarkable improvements. Stal-Laval of Sweden offer a power system using fluidised bed which burns only two-fifths as much near it, makes wave-power ideal. In the next century, it may be that all Ireland's power will come from the sea.

New forms of wind machines or mills are also being developed, and would adapt well to the electricity needs of Ireland's scattered, rural populations.

But Des O'Malley can rightly argue that these new energy forms have not yet proved themselves, and that Ireland cannot bet on 'possible' energy for her future.

Most of Ireland's hydro-energy sites have been exploited, say the ESB, though the Board is seeing if they can expand pumped storage schemes like Turlcugh Hill, Bord na Mona, said O'Malley, are trying to increase peat production for power stations, and are considering exploiting some of the smaller bogs that in the past have been ignored. But again, O'Malley is probably right when he says that the amount of power generation Ireland can expect from peat won't be much more than the (very useful) 25 per cent peat provided in 1977. That leaves coal.

Coal at two-thirds the price of an equiivalent, orthodox system. Moreover, coal power stations are quicker to build (five to six years) than nuclear stations (eight to 14), cost less and are of little interest to terrorists. If they do go wrong, they don't irradiate the surrounnding inhabitants. The ESB say that if Ireland chose coal rather than nuclear in the future, 120,000 colliers would have o arrive in Shannon every week, This seems manageable.

Ireland today imports little coal, mainly from Poland. Massive coal imports would be a major drain on Ireland's balance of payments. Coal prices have been inflating steadily, if not as fast as uranium. If Ireland replaced oil with coal, she would still face the problem of paying for these imports. Strictly in terms of balance of payments, nuclear power has a distinct advantage. O'Malley clearly prefers a nuclear system, and leaving aside for the moment the real need for it, his arguments need examining.

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Nuclear Terms

1. Enrichment. A process whereby the fi-ssile or 'burnable' fraction of natural uranium is increased. A complicated process, it inncreases the proportion of uranium - 235 from 7% to 3 or 4%.

2. Heavy Water: A tiny fraction of water is not H20, but two atoms of 'heavy hydroogen' ana oxygen. A complex process, it
extracts the heavy water from the ordinary or I ight water. The heavy water is then used for increasing the efficiency of cerrtain kinds of reactions.

3. Reprocessing: When spent fuel is taken out of a reactor, it can be either stored for long periods or it can be 'reprocessed'. This means putting the spent fuel through a chemical process that separates the useless wastes from the fraction of 'un-burnt ' fuel that still remains. The recovered fuel can then be put back into the reactor. The only commercial reprocessing plant that is working satisfactorily is a small one at La Hague, France.

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O'Malley underestimates nuclear costs, the instability of uranium supply and the dependency factor

O'Malley says: Nuclear fuel costs are very low and promise stability for the future.

This has a nostalgic ring. In the early days of nuclear power, not long after President Eisenhower had made his famous 'Atoms for Peace' speech, nuclear experts said their power would be "too cheap to meter". It has not quite worked out like that.

Trying to find out just how much nuclear power does cost is very difficult because some countries use different accounting systems. But recent work is tending to show that nuclear fuel is not the bargain it was thought to be.

For one thing, uranium costs are going up very fast. For 20 years, uranium prices stabilised at around six US dollars a pound. In 1973, the price started rising, and by early 1977, had reached 41 dollars a pound. It could be 100 dollars a pound by the mid-I 980s, according to one American expert, David Dinnsmore Corney.

Uranium prices are now controlled by what is virtually a cartel. Estimates of uranium supply vary from "running out" (the nuclear interests that want to build fast-breeder reactors that are more economical with uranium), to "plentiful" (the environmentalists who oppose fast-breeder reactors). Even the uranium mining companies may not know how much uranium there is. Sig-nificant reserves exist in Canada, AUstralia, Namibia, Niger, France and the USSR. Uranium is also present in sea-water, but is prodigiously expensive t-o extract.

Last year, the French Parliament delivered a scathing report on nuclear costs, saying: "The cost of investment has more than doubled (since 1973). The running co-sts have trebled (from 3.83 centimes per kilowatt hour to 9.7 centimes per kwh) and nuclear p-ower is today the same as the cost of burning coal.
Part of the trouble is that nuclear power companies do their SUh1S on the understanding that their reactors will be working well for most of the time. But often, reactors are out of commission. Japan has found that the American reactors it bought - the same kind as Ireland is considering - have been working only for one-fifth of the time they should have been. And nuclear economists rarely include in their callculations the cost of tidying-up or 'de-commissioning" a nuclear plant after its 20 to 30 year life is over. A radiooactive site is a headache to clean up. At the Windscale public inquiry in Britain last year, one expert, Colin Sweet, gave evidence that the real price of nuclear power was not 0.48 pence per kwh, but 1.68 pence per kwh. This is more costly than coal or oil.

On top of all this, nuclear reactors are very expensive devices. Invariably, they cost more than expected. Westingghouse PWR (pressure water reactors) ˆone of the two types Ireland is considerring - is inflating at 20 per cent a year in constant dollars (compared to 7 per cent for coal-fired plants). They are being built at twice their real expected capital costs, and are operating at six times the expected fuel cost. Their perrformance is 20 to 30 per cent worse than expected. Testimony by the New York Public Service Commission last autumn found that New York's nuclear plants were providing power 19 per cent more costly than coal - and New York is not a cheap-coal area.

In short, the cheap running costs of nuclear power may be a myth.

O'Malley said: "Nuclear power has also the advantage that sources of uranium supply are politically stable ... "

Last year, Canada cut off supplies of uranium to Europe because it was not satisfied that the fuel would not be missused. Australia is, for the duration of the present government, a safe supply source, but the Australian Labour Party, in opposition, is pledged to stop the export of uranium. The United States is a safe supply source so long as it has enough uranium for itself. Namibia (South West Africa) has a huge supply of uranium at Rossing, but the politics of Southern Africa make this supply as stable as a tent in a hurricane.

O'Malley said: "The fuel in the reactor, which normally lasts for a 12-month period, ensures a substantial store of primary energy in the country."

This is true. Moreover, Ireland could be expected to have a reserve store of uranium fuel, perhaps equivalent to another year's supply. The coal equivaalent of such a uranium supply would be enormous.

But O'Malley should not be taken as saying that a reactor provides some "energy independence" for Ireland. It makes her just as dependent as by immporting coal. She would be dependdent on foreigners for:

- the supply of fuel

- the enrichment* of fuel, if she was to buy a Westinghouse-type reactor

- supply of heavy water* if she was to buy a Canadian CANDU type reactor, the second of her two alterrnative choices

- foreign technologists to run the reactor, for at least the first decade of operation

- a foreign country to reprocess* the used fuel, if Ireland wanted reprocesssing.

- a foreign country to process the nuclear waste so it could be disposed of - foreigners to help Ireland find a site to dispose of the' waste.

The EEC could be expected to help Ireland. But formidable dependdencies remain.

O'Malley said: "It may be said that there is a danger attached to the use of nuclear power or a risk of contamination from it. The fact is there are dangers in almost everything we do. It is impossible to live in an accident-free or danger-free world."

Des O'Malley went on to say that the danger of contamination from nuclear stations will be extremely slight, and that the risk of "an environmentally significant, major accident" at Carnsore Point is "negligible".

Both of these statements are broadly right. In anodd way, this assurance may not be satisfying. For his support, O'Malley can look to the prestigious report by Professor Rasmussen of Massachusets Institute of Technology, which found, speaking generally, that the chance of dying in a major nuclear accident is about the same as being hit by a meteorite. Critics, though, have attacked Professor Rasmussen's methoddology. They say that on his evidence, the chances of two Jumbo jets colliding on a runway in Tenerife was absurdly small. It happened last year.

Critics deploy also what the English rudely call "Murphy's Law": If it is quite impossible for something to go wrong, Murphy will make it go wrong. A long case-history of malfunctions and mistakes at nuclear power stations adds some substance.

Co. Wexford's chances would be improved by the site at Carnsore Point. If the reactor went wrong, there is a strong probability that the radiation would be carried out to sea. But if a certain southerly wind was blowing, Wexford town itself, and its 13,000 people, could be affected.

Three disturbing points remain:

- Many experts, including Professor Alvin Weinburg, believe there will be a major reactor accident one day, probably in a country unfamiliar with nuclear power

- In both Britain and America, there are laws limiting the liability of the reactor operators in case of accident (£45m in the UK; 560 dollars in the United States). Evidently, insurance assessors do not take the same view as Professors Rasmussen and Mr RF Farmer - private insurance companies will not insure reactor operators for the full liability.

- In Europe and Germany especially, more people are objecting to living near a reactor on the grounds that civilised people should not be forced to run such risks of annihalation - however remote. People, it seems, take a very different view of risks they take of themselves voluntarily smoking, and risks imposed on them.

At 12.30pm on March 22 1975, two electricians at the Browns Ferry light-water reactor in Alabama were checking draughts through holes in which cables ran, under the control room. One electrician was using a small candle for this purpose. A draught came along which blew the candle flame so that it set light to plastic foam around the cable. The electricians could not put the fire out. A plant operator flooded the room with carbon dioxide to put the fire out but by then it had spread down one reactor, and then another. Tennnessee Valley Authority lost 15 per cent of its power, the fire burned for seven hours and knocked out all five emergency cooling systems on the Noel Reactor.

With no cooling systems, the reactor could have got out of control and released massive amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. But it was - just contained.

Walter Patterson in his book "Nuclear Power" comments: 'Nuclear critics and advocates alike agreed that it was potenntially the most serious accident in the history of the industry.'

That was one of them. In 1963, a fearful accident at a reactor outside Detroit was only just averted. A loose piece in the reactor blocked the flow of coolant. Since the Detroit reactor was a fast-breeder, a nuclear explosion could have resulted. Police prepared to try to evacuate the entire population of Detroit and other surrounding towns. The story is told in a book called 'We Nearly Lost Detroit'.

What are the chances of losing Co. Wexford in this way? Small. The British Royal Commission report on nuclear power (1976),also known as the Flowers Report, considered that if 10 per cent of the radio-activity from a reactor escaped, it would lead to the deaths of between 100 and 10,000 people at distances up to 16 - 24 kilometres from the reactor. The chances of this happenning, according to a UK Atomic Energy Authority expert, ER.Farmer, are about one in a million a year, for each reactor.

One has more chance of being struck by lightning - in theory.

O'Malley said: "The Carnsore Point reactor will bring many jobs to Co. Wexford."

The Minister estimated that up to 20,000 people would be given jobs while the power station was being built and 400 while in operation. He said at the Ard Fheis, with a hint of menace, that if Co. Wexford didn't want it, then he was sure that Co. Sligo, or Co. Mayo or Co. Clare (where the ESB has looked at rival sites) would be interested. Delegates applauded him.

Nuclear power is in fact a very bad employer. Long term jobs at Carnsore Point will be bought at the expenditure of about £400m - perhaps £lm a man. Taking the short term jobs into account, one might say £500,000 a job. Many other investments create more jobs.

O'Malley failed to mention that the choice facing Ireland is not 'a reactor or no jobs' but 'nuclear jobs or coal jobs.' Coal-fired power stations generally emmploy more people, and small coa-l-fired stations most of all. A recent American study has shown that the renewable energies - solar and wind - generate two and a half times as many jobs, dollar for dollar, as a nuclear investment. Heat insulation also creates many jobs.

A possible outcome of building Carnsore Point is that the ESB would close down some of its older power stations. Jobs would be lost then, perhaps even mo-re than 400 jobs in Co. Wexford

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O'Malley doesn't say what will happen to nuclear waste

What O'Malley didn't say about Carnsore Point:

The Minister did not say what will happen to the nuclear waste. It is most unlikely that any European country will take it: politically there is too much opposition to countries becoming 'nuclear dustbins'. So Ireland's spent fuel would be taken away, probably across the Irish Sea to Windscale, where it would be reprocessed. A certain amount of high-level waste would be returned to Ireland for disposal.

What would Ireland do with it? No nation in the world has yet discovered safe and permanent storage for nuclear  they are not quite there yet. The idea is to put the waste into glass canisters, which would be buried deep in some stable geological strata, perhaps granite.

However, at the moment, these high level wastes are 'hot' and have to be perrmanently cooled. The wastes in them will be radioactive for thousands of years: the plutonium fraction has a 'halfflife' of 24,600 years and therefore is dangerously toxic and radioactive for about half a million years. To some extent then, a commitment to Carnsore Point is also a commitment that future Irish people, perhaps for thousands of years into the future, will have the technology and social organisation to care for the waste. This, obviously, is a gamble.

Even if the technical problems of waste disposal are solved, Ireland will probably have to find a disposal site in the 26 Counties. Will Co. Sligo, Co. Mayo or Co. Clare be candidates for this installation? America may take the waste fuel, but only if it supplies it in the first place. In any case, it may not buy uranium from America, either because the US may not wish to sell it to us, or because it would be cheaper to buy it elsewhere.

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O'Malley ignores nuclear power's demand for greater security, more surveillance, repression etc.

Nuclear power inevitably changes the nation that relies upon it. Sabotage of a nuclear installation can have such appalling consequences (people dying of leukemia and thyroid cancers, large areas of land contaminated), that a nuclear state has to tighten security. Staff working on the power station must be subject to strict surveillance, and the 'surveyors' themselves surveyed.

In Ireland, where sabotage is a real possibility, surveillance would have to be of a high order. At the very least, the power station would have to be protected by armed guards. In the UK, the Atomic Energy Police are the only armed civilian force in the country). An intelligence unit would probably have to be set up to identify likely saboteurs. Telephoneetapping and other civil liberties infringements might be necessary.

Workers in the nuclear reactors might have to give up some of their trade union rights. In a strike at Wind scale last year, the British government was on the point of calling in troops to safeguard some facilities. Some reactors were closed down. A strike that endangered a reactor could not be permitted.

These are some objections that are likely to be raised at a future public inquiry into Carnsore Point. But they make orie assumption, that Carnsore Point will be needed for Ireland's energy future. Is this case of need in fact made out? It rests upon one sacred belief: Ireland should be an electric nation.

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O'Malley is wrong on our need for so much electricity
 
O'Malley says: "The more electrified a country is, the more advanced it is. And Ireland's needs are rising fast."

Up to about three years ago, the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy would have found hardly a voice in the world raised to disagree with him. Electricity in the 'fifties and 'sixties came to be regarded the ideal fuel  adaptable, easy to handle, powerful. But the oil crisis of 1973-4 brought a great change. Experts started to study the best ways of using different fuels, when they realised fossil fuels were running short.

Professor Barry Commoner of the University of Washington, St. Louis, was one of the first to point out to a wide audience that electricity is a high-quality fuel, often wasted by being used for lowwquality jobs. To generate one unit of electricity in a fossil-fired power station, you have to burn three units of coal or oil. The rest is lost in generating the electricity and then transmitting along power lines to homes and factories. Such a hungry special form of energy, Commoner argued, should be used for jobs that it can do better than other fuels, such as lighting, providing power for machines - not for heating homes or cooking. One expert said "We must use nutcrackers for cracking nuts, and triphammers for driving pilings."

This new view is now widely accepted in the United States and Europe. The motto is: reduce electricity consumption in the home, and replace it with another energy, perhaps coal burnt in a boiler, or bottled gas.

Des O'Malley's view, therefore, that an 'electric Ireland' would be a 'prosperrous Ireland' is slightly antique, although he could still find experts to agree. with him. In terms of sheer energy efficien cy , an all-electric Ireland would be a counntry that was wasteful with energy.

But the Minister for Industry and Commerce, informed by the ESB, says that electricity demand is growing very rapidly in Ireland. In 1977, it grew 10 per cent - just the rate it grew before the 1973-4 oil crisis. The ESB are planning on electricity demand conntinuing to grow at 8.5 per cent over the next decade. And a nuclear reactor fuelled with uranium is the best major step, O'Malley believes, to make sure that the Irish don't wake up one morning around 1990 and find the lights won't switch on because there's not enough power.

At the moment, Ireland's connsumption of electricity is less than the output of some large power stations in Canada. The greatest demand the ESB ever had to meet - a few weeks ago, in January - was some 1,800 megawatts (a megawatt is a million watts). If the ESB strained every power station it has, it could generate 2,540 megawatts. The Government has already ordered some new power stations that, whether Ireland goes nuclear or not, will take the ESB's capacity to 3,400 megawatts by 1984-5.

It takes about ten years, sometimes as much as 14 years, to build a reactor power station. If work started at Carnsore Point in 1980, then around 1990, Ireland's first reactor could be expected to start to generate electricity. By that time, Sean Tinney, the ESB's director of generation transmission, told me that Ireland's electricity demand is expected to be about 5,000 to 5,500 megawatts.

These figures are important, because the ESB officials will have very red faces if they don't come true. The ESB are thinking of ordering a 650 megawatt reactor for Wexford, about the smallest that can be bought on the market, but still, for Ireland's purposes, rather gross. Energy planners have a rule of thumb: never install a power station that is going to provide more than 10 per cent of your output. The reason is that if your power station fails, you will suddenly lose a lot of power and widespread blackouts could follow.

Dr. Edward Teller, the 'Father of the A-Bomb ' had this on his mind when he was asked about Ireland's nuclear reactor at the EEC's 'Open Debate on Nuclear Energy', held in Brussels in January. Ireland, said Teller, could not possibly use a reactor, because the country's network and output were too small.
Ireland could only make use of one if linked up with a power line with another country, say Britain. That was a remarkable statement, because Dr. Teller is the world's leading nuclear enthusiast. He believes that nuclear power is the only salvation of mankind, and virtually says the more reactors you have, the happier you'll be.

What we might call the Teller Dilemma, then, is a formidable problem facing O'Malley and the ESB. It comes down to this: how on earth can elecctricity consumption be raised enough to make sure the Wexford reactor is in scale? We'll come back to this problem.

A few factors are working for the ESB. The Republic of Irleand has the fastest rising population in Europe, and on some calculations, taking account of the new tendency for Irish people to marry younger, could be rca ching five million by the year 2000. And Ireland is still industrialising, whereas countries like Britain may be said to be deeindustrialising (putting the emphasis on low-energy using services rather than on energy-hungry manufacturing). But it will still be a close run.

O'Malley said: "Electricity is essential for growth and we must therefore have enough of it to meet needs at all times and at a reasonable price."

This argument is no longer seriously held. The linking of economic growth and energy growth, (or electricity growth) has been held to be bunkum by several studies, such as the Ford Foundation's Nuclear Power: Issues and Choices. Danish studies have shown that at times, Denmark's standard of living and GNP have gone up, while its energy use has gone down. Electricity, of all the forms of energy, is probably where the greatest savings can be made.

In Ireland this is especially true. In the year 1976-7, no less than 43 per cent of the electricity generated by the ESB went into homes, whereabout three quarters of it was used for purposes like heating, water-heating and cooking, which are far better done by other fuels. A further 7 to 8 per cent of the ESB's electricity went to commercial uses xagain better served by other fuels.

Put another way, a bout half the elecctricity that the ESB generates is a misuse of that power. Sensible energy planning would reduce this fraction to something like 20 per cent (making an allowance for homes and businesses which, for some reason, could not be re-equipped). If this was done, approxiimately one-third would be cut off the ESB's demand for generation of 1,800 megawatts. By a pleasing happenstance, this third is 600 megawatts - just about the power output of the Carnsore reactor. In fact, greater savings than one-third could be achieved, since some of the ESB's industrial supplies (37 per cent of generation in 1976-7) would also be expected to be better performed by other fuels.

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O'Malley neglects conservation and pushes nuclear

DES O'MALLEY and his Government, however, are unlikely to be rapidly converted to this new teaching about electricity. They do, however, espouse the cause of energy conservation, and substantial savings in electricity will be brought about if Ireland is efficient about conservation. A report on home insulation, The Great Heat Escape, published last month, concluded that about half the energy used in houses could be saved by fairly simple insulation methods: attic insulation, draught excluding, and by filling wall cavities. Written by Nick Warren of Voluntary Service International, the report indiccates that substantial savings in electricity would be made in about half of Ireeland's houses - 48 per cent of houses in Ireland use electricity for heating, either partly or wholly.

If you take the electricity savings through insulation, and add them to the savings brought about by using electriicity properly, then it is likely that Ireland would experience only very slow growth in electricity demand. It might even be static.

Des O'Malley ought to welcome this news: it will save us all a great deal of money, especially on imports of oil. But one doubts whether he will smile at the revelation, for its undeniable connclusion is that the case for the Carnsore Point reactor is in smithereens. Its electricity simply would not be needed.

Is this the explanation behind the Government's indifference to energy conservation? Indifference it is. In 1976 Dr EW Henry and a steering group from the Advisory Committee on Energy Conservation.reported on energy conserrvation in Ireland to the then Minister for Transport and Power. They suggested that the Government should start spennding £3 m a year over the next few years, rising to £30 m a year by 1985, to make worthwhile energy savings.

But the Government is spending nothing like £3 m a year. Last year it spent £161,000 on 'switch-it-off' adverrtising, plus a few more tens of thousands on insulation in industry and in homes through home improvement grants. One has to' be vague because such is the Government's interest in conservation that it does not even know just how much it does spend. The sums are not broken down. And everything is done to make it difficult to get a grant to insulate your house. Nick Warren found that no one in Ireland has got a grant just for heat insulation. Obstacles like the reguulation that says you must leave 15 years between one grant application and another discourage people from applying for a little money for a small job like attic insulation.

Yet six .other European countries (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Sweden) today give grants for insulation, ranging from 15 to 50 per cent of the cost.: Britain is considerring such a scheme, and in December launched a £320 m scheme to insulate all its local authority houses.

Building standards for insulation in Ireland are apalling. Many houses in Dublin are built out of cavity blocks which cannot later be filled. The new draft building regulations are good, but there is a strange delay in introducing them.

Des 0 'Malley, in short, is in a fix. If he drives the energy conservation proogramme on vigorously, he could wipe out the need for the Carnsore Point reactor. If he ignores conservation, he is going to appear unenlightened.

So far, Des O'Malley is ignoring connservation and pushing nuclear. Why is this? Most probably it is because he and the Government (and of course the ESB) feel there is prestige in Ireland going nuclear. Nuclear is new shiny technology, a sure sign that a country has left the ruck of underdevelopment. Ireland may have felt a little foolish, as members of Euratom and the International Atomic Energy Agency, without one wee reactor to display. ("Irlande? Ah, retarde ")

Just as potent may be the enthusiasm of the EEC Energy Commission for nuclear power. The Commission has set a rate of growth in nuclear energy that is now quite unrealistic in its ambition. Germany, for example, has cut her nuclear output from some 55,000 megaawatts planned in 1976, to 24,000 megaawatts planned today. The German government has told its people that no more reactors will be built (apart from those half-completed) until the problem of waste storage has been solved. France has also cut her programme, and Britain is having its work cut out to justify two new reactors in the expectation of a very slowly rising electricity demand.

Are the Irish a soft touch for the nuclear enthusiasts in Brussels? It could be. In December, the EEC said they would advance up to 20 per cent of the cost of an Irish nuclear power station.

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O'Malley is in too great a hurry

At the heel of the hunt, though, the most important question about Carnsore Point is: what is the hurry? Ireland's offshore areas are still being explored for oil and gas, and the results will be known soon. A useful new find could transform Ireland's energy picture.

A few more years, too, will provide a much clearer idea of how effective the new energies like wave-power and solar cells are going to be. While Ireland waits for these results, the Government could occupy itself with a major energy connservation drive, knowing that this techhnology is proven, creates jobs, saves on oil, benefits the balance of payments, and is not of the slightest interest to even the most insane terrorist.

If these queries about nuclear power are genuine, is there not some sense in Wexford County Council's, Fine Gael's, the Socialist Labour Party's, An Taisce's, and some of the Plain People of Ireland's clamour for an out-and-out, thorough, exhaustive, educative, meticulous public inquiry into that expensive device that O'Malley is thinking of putting down in the middle of two hundred acres at Carrrsore Point?