Republican News · Thursday 16 January 2002

Morgan lobbies Blair on nuclear power

BY ROBBIE MacGABHANN

It wasn't all peace process in Downing Street last week when Sinn Féin representatives met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Louth TD Arthur Morgan raised a series of energy issues with Blair, particularly those dealing with nuclear power generation.

The British government is currently preparing to publish a White Paper on future energy options and Morgan took the opportunity to raise the concerns of not just his constituents but of all the people of Ireland about nuclear power generation in Britain.

In a letter to Tony Blair, Morgan asked him to use the energy review and the coming closure of Britain's Magnox reactors to switch to renewable energy sources and make a more long-term commitment to renewable energy than the current energy market in Britain, where 25% of electricity is generated by nuclear power plants.

Morgan's letter pointed out that it wasn't just the THORP and MOX reprocessing plants in Sellafield that were economically unviable but the whole nuclear industry. The billion pound losses run up by British Nuclear Fuels and British Energy had shown that "nuclear power is a costly method of generating electricity". The nuclear industry was, according to Morgan, dependant on state subsidies and was "not able to pay its own way".

Sinn Féin wants the same amount of funding given to subsidising nuclear power to be invested in renewable resources and "be a positive catalyst for creating a real renewable energy environment".

Finally, Morgan asked Tony Blair to consider exploring "the possibility of developing joint British-Irish renewable energy projects", given that "Britain and Ireland have unique resources in the area of renewable energy in terms of wave and wind energy".