Seán Keyes: Yes. A small country looking for cheap, green and reliable electricity cannot rule nuclear out
Ireland’s nuclear energy ban stops the technology from even being considered properly. That is a very high bar.
A ban on generating nuclear energy only makes sense if we’re certain about the future path of our energy system or if we think nuclear is incompatible with our values.
That’s not the world we live in. There’s a lot of uncertainty about the future of our energy system. And I believe nuclear energy is perfectly compatible with our values.
The future of the energy system is uncertain because it’s going to be based on fast-moving new technologies. These technologies are not a sure thing.
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Here are just some of the things we don’t know about the energy system we’re building: whether, as it appears, wind energy has really stopped getting cheaper over time; whether hydrogen can be made to work as a storage technology; if local opposition to new transmission lines can be overcome; if we can source gas turbines for when the wind is not blowing; whether batteries in future will be able to store more than a day’s electricity; if deepwater offshore will ever be viable, whether we’ll find sources of variable electricity demand that can offset variable supply.
Out of all that, the big question is over the cost of wind energy. Unlike solar, the reduction in the cost of wind energy has plateaued in recent years. Is this a blip, or something more serious?
To be clear, there’s a lot of uncertainty about nuclear power as well. The type of nuclear power that might be a good fit for Ireland is a small modular reactor (SMR). SMRs are not ready for prime time. Indeed, they might never be. But from the perspective of a small country looking for cheap, green and reliable electricity, SMRs have three interesting features.
The first is their size. Each SMR outputs about a 10th the electricity of a traditional nuclear plant, or about 2 per cent of Ireland’s peak electricity demand. SMRs’ scale fits Ireland. The outlay and the risk profile would be manageable.
The second is their safety. Features of SMR designs such as passive cooling are designed to make them safer and more resilient than traditional reactors.
The third interesting thing about SMRs is that they’re made in factories. That’s interesting because factory-made things tend to get cheaper as production ramps up.
Right now, SMRs are too expensive. But if production ramps, they should get cheaper at some rate. The case for SMRs hinges on the rate at which they get cheaper. Experts differ on what costs to expect. One study by researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology forecasted SMRs’ levelised cost of electricity by 2040. The costs they forecast were lower than those of gas, wind and large-scale nuclear.
Technical forecasts of the cost of electricity per megawatt hour is one thing. But what about our values? Do values justify a nuclear ban?
Ireland values an electricity system that is sustainable and safe. This is why we are rebuilding our energy system. But there is no tension between SMRs and sustainability or safety, because SMRs don’t emit carbon. And, as we’ve seen, they are safe.
Denmark has the world’s most wind-intensive electricity system. It is at least a decade ahead of Ireland. Yet last year, the Danish parliament voted two to one in favour of investigating nuclear power. They are not alone: Belgium, Estonia, Spain, Poland, Italy, Romania and Sweden are at various stages of either investigating or investing in the technology.
It’s true that studying, preparing for and potentially legislating for nuclear energy would not be without risk and cost. But there is no path forward that is without risk and cost.
Let’s not limit ourselves. We should legalise all safe technologies, and then let the chips fall where they may.
Seán Keyes is the executive director of Progress Ireland and leads infrastructure policy
Paul Dorfman and Steve Thomas: No. Claims for SMRs are unproven and often wrong
Taoiseach Micheál Martin says Ireland should look at nuclear energy and work out costs and a timeline. Looking at the UK, this will be a very short exercise. Hinkley Point C is already running seven years behind schedule at double the cost – £48 billion. Other countries in Europe have had similar experiences.
But doesn’t the new nuclear small modular reactor (SMR) technology change all this with claims of lower costs and shorter construction times? Worldwide, the first and only commercial SMR to start construction was in Canada earlier this year. Claims for SMRs are at best unproven and mostly demonstrably wrong.
Ireland’s priority should be to meet its climate objectives, strengthen the reliability of the electricity system and improve affordability. The best way to do this is to focus on renewables and energy efficiency, options that are quick and reliable to deploy and will reduce electricity bills, not increase them as nuclear would.
In January, the UK government awarded new renewables contracts for about 15GW, equivalent to the total installed capacity of the Republic of Ireland, virtually all expected online by 2030, and at half the price per kWh of power from new nuclear at Hinkley Point C. Do the maths.
Wind and solar now dominate global electricity generation. In 2025, wind and solar became the bedrock of European energy self-reliance. Power generation from renewables in Europe has reached a new record of 384.9 terawatt hours (TWh). Meanwhile, Norway has just said no to nuclear power and Nato now backs renewables as the solution to energy security.
Worldwide, the renewables surge has halted the rise of fossil fuel generation, with renewables overtaking coal, supported by battery storage, providing system flexibility at scale. Renewable energy generation exceeded the rise in global electricity demand in 2025 – seen as an important threshold. In 2025, renewables made up 85.6 per cent of new global power capacity additions.
A peer-reviewed study using Denmark as a case study found that renewable energy is now 53 per cent cheaper than nuclear for total system cost, including all the costs of “firming” renewables and ensuring a stable power supply. With a doubling cost overrun, nuclear is the most expensive power source – and construction of just one station can take up to 17 years, according to a UK estimate.
Nuclear projects in Europe are running years behind schedule and vastly over budget. Nuclear power construction has an average time overrun of 64 per cent, according to a 2025 academic analysis by researchers at Boston University.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that renewables are now 10 times more effective at cutting CO2 emissions than new nuclear.
Renewables are widely regarded as the lowest-cost and quickest technologies for climate mitigation and new power generation worldwide. Renewables also support EU energy security. In 2025 wind and solar overtook fossil fuel power generation across the bloc. The challenge now is not generation, but how quickly grids, batteries and flexibility can be deployed.
Unlike nuclear “renaissance” advertising, the renewable evolution is here and now – on-schedule and cost-effective. We can mitigate climate impact and sustain a reliable power system by expanding renewable energy in all sectors, ensuring rapid growth and modernisation of the electricity grid, storage technology roll-out and, faster interconnection and using power far more effectively and efficiently.
Key international energy institutes agree that renewables will do the heavy lifting for the energy transition. The long-standing argument that renewables lack reliability no longer holds – renewables can deliver reliable, round‑the‑clock power.
Each year nuclear adds only as much net global power capacity as renewables add every two days. For Ireland, the implications are clear.
Dr Paul Dorfman and Prof Steve Thomas are both members of the Irish Government Radiation Protection Advisory Committee and are writing in a personal capacity
