By Paul McGill from NICVA
Published on 14 Sep 2007
People in the voluntary and community sector in Northern Ireland are backing energy conservation and renewable energy rather than a big technological fix.
People in the voluntary and community sector in Northern Ireland are backing energy conservation and renewable energy rather than a big technological fix
The government is consulting until 10 October on proposals for the future of nuclear power and NICVA has been testing the views of members on some of the questions posed.
Uncertainty over role of nuclear
Only 13% agreed with the government’s suggestion that it should give the private sector the go-ahead to build more nuclear power stations in the UK and 78% said no. This is a six to one majority against the proposal.
A larger minority (23%) agreed that nuclear power is a viable long-term approach to reducing our dependency on fossil fuels but far more thought otherwise (61%).
Renewables not nuclear to tackle climate change
By contrast, a huge majority (86%) thought that a strategy designed to tackle climate change should be based on energy efficiency and renewable energy not nuclear power. Only 9% disagreed, making a majority of more than nine to one.
Replies to two questions show that people in the voluntary and community sector are clearly not convinced that nuclear power offers a solution to the crisis of global warming.
Just under a quarter (24.7%) agreed that nuclear power is, along with other energy sources, part of a wider solution in terms of tackling climate change but 58% did not accept this view.
More decisively, only 16% supported the view that nuclear power is a price worth paying in order to tackle climate change and have a secure energy source. A very clear majority of 72% disagreed.
Nuclear power should be scaled down
Indeed most respondents believed nuclear power should be scaled down, not expanded. A very large majority (81%) said that given the risks associated with nuclear power and the long-term waste issues we should reduce our dependency on this energy source; only 12% disagreed.
NICVA also ran a poll on its website on a nuclear-free Ireland and repeated the question in the written survey. A huge majority of people in the voluntary and community sector want the island of Ireland to remain nuclear free. Combining the two sets of results, 84% supported a nuclear free Ireland and only 14% disagreed.
More information
For background information setting out the views of both the government and the Sustainable Development Commission see our 'Is Nuclear the answer?' article.
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