Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. I thank Senators Keogan and Mullen for the motion. As others have said, it is very timely. It is important that we talk through all of the options for our energy security. As others have also said, the existing energy crisis shines a light on our dependence on other countries. When we had fuel crises 1968 and 1973, nuclear energy was very much on the agenda for the Government of the day. Thankfully, it was taken off the agenda. This is the context in which we are having the debate again. I find it very difficult to support any proposal for nuclear energy particularly because of the waste storage issue. This is not an insignificant issue. In the United States, there are 90,000 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste with no long-term waste storage solution. We can take a short-term view that nuclear may be able to fill a gap or allow us to find an alternative source of energy supply but what will happen in the longer term? In this context, nuclear energy is not in any way acceptable.

The biggest objection to nuclear energy is not necessarily storage but the timing. An IPCC report in April stated we have less than ten years to make the changes necessary. Yesterday, the World Meteorological Organization published a report on the very dramatic changes that are already happening to our climate. How does nuclear energy fit in with that? Frankly, it does not. We are told there are no commercially available suitably-sized small nuclear reactors on the market and there is no chance of them being on the market until 2030. We know there is a big issue with the availability of uranium, which is necessary for nuclear reactors. Sufficient supplies will not come on stream until 2040. These are complicating factors. We have had various estimates that the earliest we could have a nuclear plant, however small in size, is 17 years away. This is simply too long a period of time. There is no conceivable scenario whereby nuclear energy could make a contribution towards reducing our carbon emissions in this country and become a realistic alternative to the energy supply we have or that we must import.

Attention must be on where our resources and our political and technical energies are already committed and how we accelerate this process. I very much share the concern expressed in the motion about the failure to meet targets, but it is not sufficient reason to change course. We need to look at the targets. We know Ireland has been extremely slow at building wind infrastructure. We know the planning system have been a source of difficulty. We need to look seriously at the wind energy proposals for Dublin Bay. We may not like them from an aesthetic perspective but in terms of our energy security we need to take the proposals very seriously.

Ireland is one of the few countries that does not have a green hydrogen strategy. The Minister stated that we will have one at the end of the year, It is worth saying that we have been extremely slow in developing it. Developing a strategy is one thing, implementing it is an entirely different matter. We need to get our skates on in this regard. Wind Energy Ireland estimates we have capacity to generate 70 GW around the island of Ireland, whereas the ambition to 2030 is for approximately 30 GW. There is a gap between what Ireland can produce through wind energy and the Government's targets.

We are very focused on energy supply today but I want to say something about energy consumption. There are two parts to the equation. The national retrofitting scheme is welcome but we need to look at the shortcomings to ensure people consume less energy, or consume less carbon-intensive type of energy in their households.I have a significant difficulty regarding how the national retrofitting scheme relies, effectively, so much on private households having to step up to the mark. The numbers entitled to the fuel allowance are small. It is also only that category of people who are entitled to avail of the better energy warmer homes scheme. We must do much better for that broader cohort of low- and middle-income households that simply cannot afford to reduce their energy consumption or to ensure they have a better mix of energy sources, whether that involves solar power or otherwise. I say that because, ultimately, this is a crisis. We must see climate action as a public good, like health or education, and the State’s resources must be applied on the same scale in undertaking this endeavour.