Madam, - The advice from Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the International Energy Agency, that Ireland should "certainly" consider going nuclear is a welcome dose of sanity in this debate (The Irish Times, September 19th). As he points out, Ireland will not be able to achieve a 50 per cent cut in carbon emissions by 2050 if the Government continues to rule out the "nuclear option".
Nuclear energy needs to be considered for serious economic reasons also. If the State becomes ever more dependent on increasingly expensive gas, and on unreliable wind power (which costs at least twice as much as nuclear energy), we may expect to pay a very heavy price in the near future for dithering on this matter. — Yours, etc,
JOHN STAFFORD,
Dargle Wood,
Knocklyon,
Dublin 16.