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But antipathy to nuclear power has become a kind of secular religion, based almost entirely on superstition and bad science. It is the sine qua non of what Lenin once called infantile leftism. Nuclear power was opposed at least partly because it seemed to imply a commitment to a nuclear military industry and thus nuclear weapons

WINSTON Churchill once said there was no such thing as a good tax. Perhaps, but some taxes are infinitely preferable to others. One of the better recommendations by the Commission on Taxation is for a carbon tax. Whether or not you entirely buy into the idea of massive, harmful man-made climate change, discouraging businesses and citizens from emitting pollution is in all our interests. No one in Ireland wants to live in the same toxic soup that they do in Shanghai or Moscow or Tehran.

Whats more, we all know that fossil fuels are a finite resource. The wells in the Middle East are drying up. Yes, new sources come on stream all the time in the Caribbean, in central Asia, in Africa but we still have to prepare for the day when mankind will have to give up its crude oil habit and, even sooner, its natural gas habit.

Theres another reason to move away from oil and gas: its not in Europes interests to be held to ransom by Middle Eastern dictatorships or Moscow, for that matter.

As long as national security risks arent factored into the cost of petrol and as long as carbon dioxide can be emitted without serious penalty, oil will continue to have an advantage over emerging fuels in the marketplace, and well continue our ruinous addiction to it. Reducing our reliance on fossil fuels is a no-brainer.

A carbon tax, though, would attach environmental costs to carbon-based fuels like oil, causing the market to recognise the price of their negative externalities. Wind and solar power would have a shot against natural gas. Trains would compete with trucks. We could clean the air, create wealth and jobs through a new technology boom and drastically improve our continental security.

Ireland relies on coal, oil, gas or peat for about 90% of our electricity. We only generate a tiny fraction of what we consume. Indeed, Ireland is now more heavily dependent on imported oil for our energy requirements than almost every other European country because Irish people tend to have longer commutes, because were heavily dependent on road haulage for goods and because the public transport infrastructure is poor.

Air travel has boomed, too. No wonder were consuming about 50% more oil per person than 20 years ago. The case for cutting down is clear.

A carbon tax that takes into account the carbon emissions of different types of fuel, as recommended by the commission, is a good idea, therefore. Frank Daly and his team have avoided the trap of simply imposing a levy on businesses by assuming that all fuels are the same when, as we all instinctively know, for example, peat is a dirtier technology than, say, gas.

In Britain, a flat rate on electricity usage, whatever the method of generation, has led, in part, to a controversial increase in coal-fired power. Mondays proposals, however, should encourage switching to less polluting fossil fuels and to renewables like solar and wave power.

A previous generation sought independence in energy by harnessing the Shannon, making Ardnacrusha, in its time, the largest hydroelectric plant in the world. Thanks to that foresight, 10% of Irish electricity comes from hydroelectric power over 80 years later.

We need similar foresight now. We must continue to invest in hydroelectric and also more in wind power to secure a diverse energy mix. A carbon tax should encourage us to use less fuel overall and, to the extent that we must, to use cleaner fuels.

Where the commissions report falls down in its chapter on fuel taxes is in relation to revenue neutrality. Their brief was to come up with ideas that did not increase or decrease receipts to the exchequer. They didnt come up with specific recommendations to ensure revenue neutrality but concluded “carbon tax revenue should be used, in the first instance, to combat fuel poverty”.

The thinking behind this is that the people who tend to be burdened most by environmental taxes are the poorest in society: a person earning

Related posts:

1. Factfile: nuclear and carbon trading
2. Trapping Carbon Dioxide Or Switching To Nuclear Power Not Enough To Solve Global Warming Problem, Experts Say
3. Underground “nuclear batteries” promise zero-carbon power
4. Campaign pushes for a carbon-free and nuclear-free Wisconsin
5. Scrap nuclear, bring in carbon tax: Green Party leader

Tags: Carbon Emissions, Carbon Tax, U. K. Carbon