I suppose one must welcome the fact that the Bill before us this evening has been initiated in the Seanad. We are grateful to the Minister for bringing this Bill and the Bill that we discussed earlier this afternoon before us so that this House has managed to keep some sort of respectable performance. However, having said that and without wishing in any way to be ungracious, nevertheless, I must say that some of the other features in the introduction to this Bill are not so worthy of favourable comment. The Minister has introduced a Bill to us here on an important and complex subject. Yes, with this Bill there is no Explanatory Memorandum which would have set the scene for us in regard to the Bill and enable Members to place the Bill in perspective and therefore make them better able to make a contribution on it. The Minister has mentioned that there was a report on the subject in 1958; he mentions also a later report of 1966. Unless I have overlooked this latter report, as far as I am aware it was not published. So we have legislation introduced here on the basis of a report which was not published. There was no White Paper in regard to it and no Explanatory Memorandum. This makes it difficult for Members of the House to deal with an important piece of legislation like the present Bill. Therefore, while we welcome this particular Bill so far as it has been introduced into the Seanad, the Seanad, in this particular case, has not been given as much an opportunity as they might to do justice to the Bill.
The Minister has said in his introductory speech that we are concerned with the application of nuclear energy to human wellbeing. This is something we should remember. We are repeatedly told that we are living in the nuclear age, but in fact, as it were, live in two nuclear ages. We live in the nuclear age in which the threat of nuclear war hangs over the whole of mankind. But we also live in the second nuclear age in which those same forces that can create such havoc on such a scale can be harnessed for our benefit.
It is hard for us to realise the pace with which these developments have been taking place and will be taking place. We look back 50 years and find that the nucleus and its energy is merely a matter for academic speculation. Look back 60 years and the very existence of the nucleus itself within the atom was not known. We look back to just 50 years ago and we had at that period cartoons of a little man with long hair writing on a blackboard capital E=mc². People talked of Einstein's theories that only six people in the world could understand. Yet here was the germ of the power and the terror of Hiroshima, and of also the opportunities which lie before us and before every other country in regard to this particular line of development.
As the Minister said in his introductory speech, the physical realisation of these theoretical speculations was made during the Second World War under the pressure of war. It was unfortunate that the first thing that the world at large knew of the new nuclear age was to read in their newspapers on a morning in 1945 of the complete and devastating destruction of a Japanese city by a new weapon of a kind not known before. Only yesterday, we read in the newspapers, that last year 70 people died from the effects of a bomb dropped 25 years ago.
So, in a sense, it would be understandable if the attitude of the general public towards nuclear development should be conditioned by this background, this first introduction to the nuclear age. It is true, to some extent, that there may be difficulties in regard to the question of development of nuclear power here, in regard to the siting of nuclear power stations, because this is what people feel in their inner consciousness. Having first been introduced, as I have said, to the nuclear age through the horror of Hiroshima, the immediate reaction is to say "We want none of this". We find in many instances that the public attitude towards every aspect of nuclear power is to consider that nuclear energy is, as it were, tainted with the original sin that was incurred by its first large scale use at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
It is, therefore, all the more incumbent that we should help the public and do all we can to inform public opinion that there is the second nuclear age: there is the nuclear age ushered in not by the monstrous bomb of 1945 but by the UN Conference of 1955 on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy. To reject the nuclear age completely is to reject one of the most powerful means we have for improving living standards throughout the world. It is easy to say that we want no more A bombs, no more H bombs, that we do not want nuclear fission or nuclear fusion, that we wish we never heard of it, that we want nothing to do with it.
It is interesting to reflect that if we do take an attitude like this, if we take the extreme attitude that we wish nuclear fusion were banished from the universe, we are asking for the sun to be switched off. We are asking for an end to the source of all our energy, the source of all our power, the source of all life, which is there in the nuclear fusion of the sun safely out in space, where there is no siting problem in regard to it. Human progress throughout history has been a fitful and uneven thing. I am one of those who believe that, despite the inequity and the misery that remain, that human progress is a reality, that from century to century the lot of the average man has improved. I believe that in this particular power which man has unlocked for himself we have the greatest contribution towards making the twenty-first century better than the twentieth. Progress has been made by replacing physical human drudgery and this was done initially by drawing on the energy which was locked up in our fossil fuels. These, as we well know, will not last for ever.
In addition, the development of the industrial revolution showed clearly in the case of energy sources such as this that their bulk gave an immediate advantage to those particular areas in which these fuels were located. If we are really serious as a world community in promoting the development of the whole world, we must recognise in nuclear power a source in which the fuel is readily transportable so that in fact, the economies of the use of nuclear fuel throughout the world and away from the sources should be much the same as those close to the sources themselves. If we are to progress further, if we are to raise—and they must be raised—the living standards of the world, the power that is locked up in the nucleus of the atom must be drawn upon.
In making use of nuclear power for the betterment of man, we can discuss it in terms of two broad uses. Firstly, the use of the isotopes themselves in medicine, direct healing as well as in diagnosis, in applications in industry, applications in agriculture, in medicine —direct healing in medicine as well as in diagnosis—in applications in industry, in applications in agriculture and applications in scientific research.
The second great peaceful use of nuclear energy is in the production of heat and in the production of power. Although the Minister has dwelt largely in his introductory speech on the problem of the development of nuclear energy, which apparently has been the immediate occasion giving rise to this Bill, I think it no harm that we should look just for a moment at these other uses of isotopes. There is quite substantial use in this country at the moment and this use will certainly increase, perhaps increase very sharply.
I think it is only proper, therefore, that there should be a unified control of radioactive substances. They have been used in agricultural research and development in this country but I get the impression that in industry the use of isotopes has been nothing like as widespread as it might well have been. Perhaps in this, as in some other things, our industrialists and their technologists are not as alive as they might be to these recent developments.
At present, as I understand it, the control of the handling and the use of these isotopes can only be effected under statutes which were intended for more general purposes, many of them, indeed, drafted at times when radioactive substances meant no more than perhaps radium itself. It is a highly unsatisfactory situation and, indeed, it is unsatisfactory that the condition has gone on so long and that in fact the control of these substances has been done in this particular haphazard fashion. We had, many years ago, a report of the Radioactivity Consultative Council established by the Minister for Health which reported—I am not sure of the exact date on which it reported, I think sometime in February, 1959— to the Minister for Health in regard to the control of radioactive materials.
Eleven years have passed and yet the draft regulations, full draft regulations which appeared in the appendix of this report, have not to my knowledge yet been introduced by the Minister for Health or introduced in any other way. We appear to be jogging along on the basis of control under quite general powers which the Minister for Health might have, under powers which the Minister for Labour has, which derive largely from the Factories Acts, and we probably find that our old friend the alkali inspector has some function somewhere along the line.
I think this situation has been grossly unsatisfactory and therefore we can do nothing but welcome the fact that in this Bill there will be control of radioactive substances on a central basis and as a result of expert advice. There are points in regard to these regulations, indeed there are many points of detail, which I think are better deferred to the Committee Stage rather than discussed now.
However, before I move away from this question of radioactive substances and the use of isotopes, there is one question that I should like to raise at this time. There is not in this Bill a definition of radioactive substances. I should like to ask the Minister why. Though the term is used in the Bill— there are references, to fissile fuel or other radioactive substances—we have no definition in the Bill. I should like to know what is the reason for the omission of a definition here. I think it is important. There is a definition of radioactive substances in the Health Act of 1953, but it is a definition so broad as to be virtually useless. The definition there defines as a radioactive substance anything natural or artificial that contains any radioactive material whatsoever. This definition, in fact, makes the Minister a radioactive substance. It makes me a radioactive substance as well and makes every Member of this House a radioactive substance and brings us under the control of the legislation which we are talking about now.
I think we should tease this matter out in a bit more detail on Committee Stage. I would direct the Minister's attention to the fact that early legislation in Britain on radioactive substances was quite general in definition but in the later Acts, particularly the Act of 1965, the definition became quite specific and was made the subject matter of a schedule.
As I mentioned earlier, the main burden of the Minister's speech was concerned with the question of the use of nuclear energy for power purposes. By introducing this particular Bill at this stage, the Minister has initiated a public debate on the question of whether we should have nuclear power, whether we should have nuclear power now, what sort of nuclear power should we have, where should our power stations be situated? As I see it, the arguments for and against nuclear power fall under a relatively small number of headings. The arguments in favour of nuclear power put forward at various times can be largely based on three considerations; on questions of economy, on questions of diversification and on the question of experience with nuclear technology.
The arguments that have been brought forward against nuclear energy have, I think, largely been brought forward, firstly, on the basis of safety and, secondly, on the basis of amenity. When we have to weigh together arguments pro and con for an important decision such as this, on whether we should go ahead with nuclear development for power, we like to have as much information as possible, and so there is, I suppose, a tendency to postpone the decision until the last moment. In this particular operation, unfortunately, this is not possible because one of the very big factors here is, the long lead time that is required in regard to such decisions. I have heard it estimated that the training time required initially is something in the order of four to five years and that the questions of design and the actual realisation of a power station is something of the order of five to six years.
Accordingly, it is necessary to make decisions to commit some resources of technical manpower some ten years or more before a nuclear plant is commissioned and comes on to the national system. In this, of course, as the Minister and the ESB have kept us informed, the ESB have already committed certain resources in this direction and they have been commended in this House for their foresight in doing so.
We are now rapidly approaching the time when a decision must be made to commit far larger resources and, indeed, to make the decision whether to go ahead or not. It does not appear in the Bill but the Minister in his introductory speech talked of making the decision and going ahead something like 12 months from now. My own estimate had been that the decision would have to be made within two years from now but apparently the Minister is advised that the decision is even more urgent than that.
So if this decision must now be made it is a decision of such a nature that it is not one to be taken by the Minister in isolation, not to be taken only on technical advice within the Electricity Supply Board. It is, I think, a decision which must be taken in public, must be taken with as much information as possible being made available to the general public. For that reason I make no apology for discussing at length the factors which are involved in this decision as I see them on the information available to me.
I mentioned that the first argument for nuclear power was that of economy, but were this the only argument in favour of nuclear power it is probable that we would not build any nuclear stations and it is quite certain that most of the nuclear stations that have been built elsewhere would not have been built. I should like to quote from a paper entitled Initiation of a National Nuclear Power Programme read to the Third International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy held under United Nations auspices at Geneva in 1964. Here is a paper on the initiation of a national nuclear power programme. The authors of the paper are both consulting engineers of experience. They state as follows:
A decision to proceed with the construction of a nuclear power station would probably be made for one or more of the following reasons:
(a) Because calculations indicate that the energy produced will be cheaper than from any other source;
(b) because domestic sources of energy are becoming exhausted;
(c) To act as a deterrent to an increase in the price of conventional fuel;
The last reason, on this particular day, when there is a threatened rise in oil prices, must commend itself to the Minister.
(d) To obtain operating experience and operator training facilities in anticipation of nuclear power being required in larger quantities in the future;
(e) To provide manufacturing industry with experience.
The authors go on to say in the next paragraph:
Almost no reactors have been built for reason (a) above; most were built for a combination of other reasons.
I think we will find that the situation is the same in this country. Since 1955 we have had continual expressions of hope that nuclear power would become competitive on a pure cold economic comparison with more conventional power systems. If one reads the papers that have been published in the 15 years since then, one reads that nuclear power is not yet competitive, but that improved design, improved operation and reduced cost of fuel will in five to ten years make nuclear power competitive and more than competitive with the conventional plants based on fossil fuels. These hopes have not been realised. It has not stopped people continuing to express them up to the present time and we still see from time to time statements that in fact we must make a decision to go ahead now because in ten years time, by the time the plant is commissioned, nuclear power will be the cheapest of all forms of power. I am not expert in this field but I am certainly sceptical as to whether these hopes will be completely realised ten years from now any more than the hopes of 1955 were realised.
Certainly there has been an improvement in nuclear technology but this has been matched by improvements, not perhaps so spectacular, in the technology of more conventional power plants. Nuclear fuel costs have not been greatly reduced and I think the only thing that has narrowed the gap—I admit that it has been narrowed—is in fact that, even though nuclear fuel costs have not been substantially reduced, conventional fuel costs have certainly risen. I mentioned by quotation that one of the arguments used for nuclear power is that it will act as a deterrent to increases in the cost of conventional fuel. We read in our newspapers today that there is a very serious possibility, a very serious threat, that oil prices, which are the fuel prices which we are concerned with in this country for power purposes, are likely to rise substantially in the near future.
Indeed, even if we did not have this new situation, we must realise that we have had in the past few years a considerable rise in these fuel prices. The Korean war led to a big jump in the cost of oil. A slight recovery then occurred which was not completed when the Suez crisis put the cost of oil, not just of Suez oil but of oil all over the world, back up again. In more recent times we have had disturbances due to political events throughout the world. The Libyan coup, the Middle East crisis, all of these have been pushing up the price of oil and I do not think any of us will be sanguine enough to believe that the particular regions which we depend on for oil will have a happier political history, happier political chronicles, in the future than they have had in the past.
So I think it is probably reasonable to plan for the contingency that nuclear power will be within sight of comparability of the cost in ten years' time. It may well be that I am wrong, that oil prices will rocket so much that nuclear power will actually be competitive. So while we cannot say at the moment, on the costings available to us at the moment—and I would say certainly not at the interest rates on which we would have to calculate at the moment—nevertheless in ten years time it certainly is a distinct possibility that nuclear fuel will either be competitive with the fossil fuels or that it will be very close to being so. Of course, we cannot be certain of this.
The Minister in his speech mentioned the question of the high capital cost of nuclear plants which is, I think, something of the order of twice the capital cost of the same insallation in a conventional thermal power plant, though, of course, not as great as the capital investment in hydro plants. If high interest rates of the order of which we have at the moment are to persist, if these are to be the rates which are to govern the installation of our first nuclear plant in this country, it will certainly have a great effect on its economy. So if we look at the arguments from the point of view of economy I think we can say that because we are planning something like ten years ahead we cannot see a clear economic advantage between a nuclear power station and more conventional stations.
The second type of argument for, which I mentioned earlier, is the one based on the diversification of power supply and this has been touched on by the Minister in recommending this Bill to us this evening. I think we tend to forget, in a way, how quickly we are growing in this country. We tend to forget how quickly we are moving away from a power infrastructure which was managed by a few stations —hydro stations, peat stations and the few oil stations. It does not seem much when we talk about the 10 per cent increase per year. Inflation has taught us to live with figures of that size. But it is sobering when we come to realise it that whether we are talking about price inflation or of power of consumption, that 10 per cent per year means a doubling in eight years.
We are now talking of the type of plant which will go on to the ESB system in something like eight to ten years from now. When this plant, whose nature has to be decided now, actually comes into commission in the intervening time the power system will have doubled in size. According to the annual report of the ESB, our hydro power has been largely developed, except for the special development of pump storage which will be complementary to nuclear power stations. In the terms we are thinking of, our peat stations have a distinctly limited life. This means that from now on the dependence of our power system on one particular fuel—imported oil—will be far too concentrated to be healthy, either from the point of view of the operation of the ESB or from a general national viewpoint.
We can always hope and pray that natural gas will be discovered in the Irish Sea. If, in fact, any explorations for natural gas in the Irish Sea are successful, I would hope that the Minister and the Government will ensure that these deposits will not be exploited by private developers to the detriment of our power needs. If there are sources of natural gas close enough to be economic to come into our supply system, here would be a very welcome diversification, a diversification which would be added to that which will be given by a nuclear power plant. In the case of development of this type I would impress on the Minister that it is of the utmost national importance that our national need in regard to power should not be neglected.
We can take it as a matter of course that, after the year 2,000 A.D., the vast majority of power will be nuclear power, possibly backed by pumped storage systems with, perhaps, if the deposit continues to develop and continues to be brought in, natural gas. There is a tendency to say "Let's wait". The Minister spoke of the fact that only recently had nuclear power stations of the order of 350 to 500 megawatts been developed in other countries. There is a fair amount to be said for the argument "Let's wait until the year 2,000 A.D. Let's wait until 1990". Or some people might say "Let's wait until 1980". In fact, we are at 1980 already. In regard to these decisions, if we want to have nuclear power by 1980 we must make our decisions within the next year or so. From the point of view of diversification, even if we are not going to get strictly competitive costs, we should move relatively quickly, which means moving now.
There is also the argument of the gaining of experience, which was mentioned in the quotation I gave earlier. Training goes a certain way. The training that has been done under the aegis of the ESB has certainly been most valuable. But there is really no substitution for actual operation. There is no substitute for facing the job to be done.
While we are talking about nuclear power it is not only the production of power which will be nuclear based from the year 2,000 on. Heavy industry and our technology generally will be also nuclear based to an extent far beyond what we realise now, perhaps even beyond what we imagine. There will be a need for a great pool of talent, of trained people here. In this regard the ESB can fulfil a necessary national function in leading in this particular field: in training people, in giving them operational experience. They themselves may not like to lose the trained people to industry, but this is a function which our semi-State bodies can well serve. In this regard they can perform an extremely useful function, without being asked to do it in an exaggerated way.
If we decide to move relatively quickly, it means moving now. The Minister has indicated some of the considerations in this regard. It is very hard to say, but it would appear that a station of the size of 500 megawatts is probably the lowest size likely to be economic. We talk about ten years from commissioning, but decisions in regard to design will have to be made very early on. When we start to design we are really concerned with the basic technology as it is known now, and developments within the next ten years can be added on points of detail but not on the basic technology.
We should not move until we can build a station of perhaps the order of 500 megawatts. If we were to build a station of the order of 200 to 500 megawatts, from costings such as I have seen this might well be about 40 per cent dearer. This may be a little high but I have seen figures of this nature quoted. The trouble is the great safety precautions which have to be taken because of the nature of the fuel being used, that these are a far higher proportional charge on the smaller stations than they are on the larger ones. Why should we not straightaway say, "Yes, let's build 500 megawatts. Let's go as quickly as we can. Why did we not start building it last year?" The answer to this lies in what the Minister has said this evening, that it is very bad practice in regard to an electrical supply to put all your eggs in one basket, as the Minister has said, to put more than ten per cent of your system into a particular plant. We must have all read of the case in the United States where, due to load shedding and the passing on of a shed load from station to station, each of them tripping out in turn, this blacked-out the east coast of the United States due to the instability of their particular system that time. Adopting the rule of thumb which has been mentioned by the Minister, of 10 per cent, and if we take the figure, which I think it might be dangerous to go below, of 500 megawatts for a nuclear plant, we then would come to the conclusion that, in fact, until the system which we are talking about is a system of 5,000 megawatts, we should not commission a nuclear power plant.
We want to ask ourselves when will our system reach this particular stage and here, of course, we have to be careful about what we mean by the system. Mercifully we are not talking about the ESB system only. Here we begin to see one of the advantages of the essential sanity of the agreement which we have with Northern Ireland in regard to the inter-connection of power supply. Due to the agreement which has been made in this particular regard, when we talk of the size of the system that must be reached we are not talking only of the ESB system but because of the inter-connection and the backing up, we are talking, of the ESB system and the Northern Ireland system combined. This system is probably something of the order of 2,500 megawatts at the moment. Therefore my estimate would be that we need a doubling of our present system. Now a doubling of our present system in fact is something which is liable to come about in eight years at our present rate of increase of supply.
That is why I reached the estimate that we must make a clear decision within two years, if in fact we are to have a plant on line in that particular time. It is, of course, absolutely necessary that this must be planned in co-operation with the Northern Ireland electricity authorities. There are arguments in favour of a joint plant and that discussions should go on this particular basis. But there are also, I think, some considerations against this. The question of a joint nuclear energy plant is not the essential feature. The really essential point is the fact of the inter-connection of the two systems, the ability to treat the two systems as a unit, and a willingness to plan the development of the two systems as a single unit. Given that, there are no overwhelming arguments against separate development.
We may say that this may lead to difficulties. If there is to be a nuclear plant in ten years time who is to have it? Who is going to do it? When we have made up our minds whether it is a good or a bad thing, it will affect which way that particular argument would go.
If we look at the position, if we say that there is to be an atomic power plant in the North or there is to be an atomic power plant here, this does not mean postponing forever or postponing for another ten years another atomic power plant. In ten years time when the first plant is commissioned, we are dealing with a system of 5,000 megawatts, growing at the rate of 10 per cent. That is growing at the rate of 500 megawatts a year. So we could, though it might be foolish, commission one atomic plant per year in order to keep up with the load without exceeding what I have taken, for the sake of argument, as an economic size of plant of 500 megawatts. To do this would be, however, to go against the diversification which I have already spoken of. The question is that if the decision were made for two separate atomic nuclear power plants North and South, there need not necessarily be a delay of more than a few years between the two. There would need to be coordination and a joint decision.
The arguments, then, for going into nuclear power would appear to indicate that this would be beneficial, that it would be economic, or nearly so, and that there are other factors in regard to diversification, in regard to the national interest, in gaining experience in nuclear technology. After all, in the past we have for national and for social reasons made decisions in regard to the forms of electricity production which were quite uneconomic and there is no compelling reason why we should not do this again for sufficient reason.
The arguments against going in the direction of nuclear power, as I mentioned, were arguments based largely on safety and amenity. Here people's ideas may well be coloured by the original use of nuclear power. Also they may remember newspaper accounts of such incidents as the Windscale accident and say we do not want that sort of thing to happen here. I think it is important to point out that here cerainly was an incident at Windscale that was relatively serious, but Windscale was not a nuclear power station. It was an experimental reactor. Whatever was said about it publicly there is no doubt that Windscale was primarily operated for military purposes, and that only incidentally was there power production. It was not designed primarily as a nuclear power plant and, in fact, was operated in a far different fashion than any nuclear power plant which would be operated in this country.
The safety research in regard to nuclear power is enormous. Probably in no field of technology has there been such an extensive research effort in regard to safety. The safety investment in nuclear power stations is extremely high and the record is, as far as I know, a clean sheet. As far as I know, there has been no serious incident in any nuclear power station designed and operated for power production. If anything, a nuclear power station would be safer than the conventional power plant. Because of the potentiality of the results of a serious accident the emphasis on safety is very much greater. Because the fuel used is radioactive there is this huge investment in the shielding of these fuel elements and anything that is in contact with them. There is the great investment and the whole structuring of the work and of the monitoring system in regard to it and, indeed, I would say it is probably decidedly safer to work in a nuclear power plant than to work on any of our building sites which we see round the city at the moment.
The safety programme is largely concerned with this problem of the fuel. I take it that in any nuclear power development in this country all that we would be concerned with would be the importation of fabricated elements of enriched uranium. I do not see any economy, I do not see any sense in any question of breeder reactors, any question of the enrichment of fuel here.
