The debate on nuclear power is moving from the margins to the centre, writes Emmet Oliver

Back in April 2003 the then minister for communciations, Dermot Ahern, and a delegation of ESB executives stood in a windblown field and cut the ribbon on a new wind farm at Carnsore Point, Co Wexford.

The chairman of the ESB, Tadhg O'Donoghue, speaking at the opening, said: "This site at Carnsore has gone from the location for a proposed nuclear site to a site for clean energy production, the full change from 'mean to green', if you like."

That wind farm now produces electricity for the national grid and the ESB sees it as an integral part of its renewable energy portfolio.

But while the greening of Carnsore Point has been achieved, events in recent months have raised the prospect - for many the spectre - of the "mean" making a comeback.

Nuclear energy, for so long a dead political issue, is back as a contentious subject to be debated by policymakers, politicans, businessmen, scientists and environmentalists.

This is surprising considering there has been virtually no debate on the subject since the late 1970s when a series of concerts objecting to nuclear power were staged at Carnsore Point.

The small number of nuclear supporters - mainly confined to academia - scurried back to their labs following these mass outpourings of public opposition to any form of nuclear energy production.

Their case was hardly helped when in 1979 a nuclear plant at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania suffered a partial core meltdown.

The move toward nuclear power in the 1970s was triggered, at least in part, by the energy crises of 1973 and 1979.

While there were tough economic times in the 1980s, too, fuel crises were relatively rare in Ireland or elsewhere during that decade. Climate change at that point only concerned obscure scientists who very rarely penetrated mainstream thinking. In fact, satellites have only been recording global temperatures since the early 1980s.

With climate change very much a marginal concern in Ireland in the 1980s and early 1990s, the old debates about nuclear power, stirred up during the Carnsore concerts, were very much put into cold storage. But for the first time since the 1970s proponents of nuclear power are moving into the centre from the political margins.

This week support for a discussion of the merits of the argument emerged from an unlikely source when the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu), whose members have traditionally opposed facilities like Sellafield, said serious consideration should be given to nuclear power during debates about Ireland's future energy needs.

Ictu made it clear it was not giving outright support to nuclear energy, but its call even for a debate was a radical move, although the ATGWU immediately reprimanded the organisation for even thinking aloud about a nuclear future.

The section of the Ictu report on nuclear energy was somewhat ambiguous. "Congress believes that the debate on Irish energy policy should give serious consideration to nuclear energy. The use of nuclear power, it is argued, can bring real benefits, including a substantial reduction in emissions. On the other hand, the economics of nuclear power along with safety and environmental issues must be fully analysed."

However, the union described attempts at "official level" to effectively stifle debate as "short-sighted".

While many people in the State will strongly disagree with the statement that "serious consideration" should be given to the idea of nuclear energy in the Republic, there is plenty of support at "official level" for at least a debate. Forfás, Ibec, the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) and the ESB are just some of the bodies to have called for a debate, whatever about the substantive issue.

Opponents of nuclear energy will clearly see all this activity as the thin end of a very large wedge. But there are particular reasons, apart from climate change, for the debate to get under way. Quite simply, Ireland is one of the countries most dependent on energy imports in Europe. Aproximately 90 per cent of all fuel used to make electricity in Ireland comes from outside the country. In addition, the small amount of indigenous oil and gas found in Irish waters has not been easy to bring ashore.

Its worth remembering that the Corrib field was first discovered back in 1996. As everone knows, the field has yet to go into commercial production. On the oil front there have been no major discoveries for many years even though the likes of Shell and Exxon Mobil are carrying out drilling in Irish waters.

With domestic oil and gas producing virtually no energy for Ireland, our dependence on foreign sources has grown to alarming levels. This is one of the reasons why the nuclear debate has been triggered.

The other reason is the sheer scale of power that can be produced by the average nuclear station. Nuclear energy gives the world about 10 per cent of its electricity. In France - where the siting of nuclear power plants is often a source of local pride and there is a general confidence in the ability of the authorities to manage the facilities - it provides almost 80 per cent of all electricity.

This may not be the case in the Republic where the performance of conventional power plants is poor. If a debate finally begins on nuclear power, the first questions that need to be answered are who would build the plant and who would operate it? A foreign company or the ESB?

The ESB chairman has already made positive noises about nuclear as a form of energy, but as the company has virtually no expertise in the area it is unlikely it would get the contract.

The question of who operates the station is not likely to be the core of the debate, however. The vast majority of the public would appear to be against the idea on any grounds and the constant stream of alarming safety incidents at Sellafield means that arguing persuasively in the other direction will prove difficult.

It is also worth remembering that no influential group has actually been prepared to advocate nuclear unequivocally. The somewhat more tepid assertion that we need a debate hardly represents a groundswell of opinion.