Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I move:

That Seanad Éireann, recognising the need for Ireland to be energy independent, supports the various efforts to ensure that Ireland is protected against a shortage of energy in the years ahead. These efforts should include wind, wave, solar, tidal, off-shore gas, nuclear fusion and nuclear fission.

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I am not sure if this is his first time to come to the House in his ministerial capacity. We welcome the opportunity to have him here at this early stage.

I am disappointed the Government decided to table an amendment to the motion. I purposely worded it in a way that the Government would not have to table an amendment to it. I thought it was neutrally worded and would present the opportunity to debate a topic that I consider important.

Senator O'Toole and I will lead in introducing this motion. As the 12 minutes speaking time I have been allocated is short, I will limit my contribution to one aspect of this debate and Senator O'Toole will speak about another aspect of it. The fact that I will limit my contribution, to a large extent, to one topic does not mean that I do not have a great deal of time for the other topics in this debate.

There is an urgent need for Ireland to be protected against a shortage of energy supply in the years ahead. We should be examining all the energy options. This debate should include wind, wave, solar, tidal, off-shore gas and nuclear energy. My aim is to bring together the debates on security of supply and climate change and to find the best way to address these crucial issues.

I am disappointed there has not been a proper debate on the energy issue to date, one that properly analyses the best ways to make Ireland energy independent. That is the wording I used in this motion. We must carefully explore the potential energies and go beyond merely promoting certain energies because they have what I would call a feel good factor. This debate must also not succumb to scaremongering or to lobbying. We must come together and examine what is best for Ireland, not only for those who are my age but for the next generation and future generations.

Ireland has one of the highest energy dependency rates of any country in Europe with approximately 90% of all the country's energies having to be imported, according to EU figures. The question will be asked as to whether so-called renewable energies alone will help to address such dependency and make us energy independent in the future.

I was asked on radio and television programmes a few years ago what business I would enter if I was to go into business now. In that respect, I would say that I would be enthusiastic about the opportunities in the energy sector, particularly in sustainable energy. There are opportunities in that sector but we must develop them because it is necessary to do so to meet the needs of the next generation.

This issue is linked to whether renewable energies will significantly contribute to reducing our level of CO2 emissions. Renewable energy sources in this country account for just 2.6% of all our energy needs. This is far short of the Government's target of 20% by 2020. In 1997, the industrial nations of the world agreed at Kyoto to reduce CO2 emissions but we have a long way to go before we get anywhere near what we have to achieve. We must examine the options to make this country less dependent on outside sources of energy so we cease being one of the most energy-dependent countries of the 27 member states - we could be one of the worst in this regard - while at the same time reducing our CO2 emissions.

We need to have a more open debate on the various sources of energy and I include nuclear energy upon which I will speak for the next few minutes of my contribution. There has been a significant shift in the thinking on nuclear power over the past number of years, particularly in recent months. Many opponents of nuclear power have changed their minds over atomic energy because of the urgent need to look at energy independence and to cut carbon dioxide emissions. Environmentalists such as Stephen Tindale, former director of Greenpeace, UK Green Party candidate, Chris Goodall, and the chairman of the UK Environment Agency, Chris Smith Finsbury, are now lobbying for the use of nuclear power. They announced their support about six weeks ago. None of these people was in favour of nuclear power a decade ago, but recent scientific evidence of just how severe climate change may become as a result of the burning of oil, gas and coal in conventional power stations, has transformed their views. It is a measure of how urgent the CO2 problem has become that some anti-nuclear environmentalists have lately been willing to reconsider their long-standing opposition to nuclear power. James Lovelock, who is a former chief scientist for NASA and was the first person to discover the hole in the ozone layer, believes that in the short term, "Only nuclear power can now halt global warming". He argues that we "should regard nuclear energy as something that could be available from new power stations in five years and could see us through the troubled times ahead when the climate changes and there are shortages of food and fuel and major demographic changes".

There is more than just a shift in thinking; changes are taking place and all over Europe governments are realising that in order to secure their energy supplies in the face of threatening behaviour from oil-supplying countries such as Russia, nuclear power is probably the only way forward. Poland wants its first nuclear plant by 2020 and Britain decided last year to replace its ageing nuclear reactors and create new sites. France has ordered its 61st nuclear generator and Finland is building the largest reactor in the world, which is expected to open in 2011. Nuclear reactors are to be built in Sweden for the first time in nearly 30 years. I was in Sweden two weeks ago and this is a talking point. People remember how opposed they were to nuclear power in the past but they have decided to abandon the commitment made in 1980 to phase out nuclear power. Sweden is just one of a number of EU countries that have chosen nuclear energy to diversify from fossil fuels and meet tough climate-change targets for cutting CO2 emissions. It will replace the country's existing ten reactors, which supply roughly half of its electricity. It is interesting to note that no public money will be invested in the nuclear industry and all funding will come from the private sector. The example of Sweden demonstrates that a country renowned for its progressive ideas when it comes to the environment, that has extensive hydroelectric energy resources and where popular opinion has been against nuclear power previously, can have a radical change in both popular and government opinion. In this country we still cling to the outdated condemnation of nuclear power through our Electricity Regulation Act 1999. I remember when that Act went through this House we all nodded our heads in agreement with it. Austria, too, fell victim to intense lobbying and environmentalists stopped a nuclear plant in Austria from being switched on and instead Austria built two coal fired power plants with long-term effects on the environment.

With the exception of Chernobyl, there have not been any deaths as a result of nuclear power but this must be compared to the number of people who died in coal mines. I do not agree completely with the sentiment expressed by Mr. James Lovelock because while I agree that nuclear power is important, we should also give renewable sources of energy a chance. It is correct to incentivise the use of renewable energy and the question has to be asked whether it is possible to go beyond 20% of energy being renewable energy, given the limitations of supply and the unreliability of wind etc.

The reason for my argument in favour of nuclear power is because we have been afraid in the past to talk about nuclear power. Now we have discovered that we must look elsewhere because of the challenges facing us and facing the next generation in particular. The interesting fact about nuclear power is that it is, in so far as we know, much safer than other sources of energy. I know everyone thinks of what happened at Chernobyl and also what happened in America at -----