Opposition Spokesman on Energy Phillip Paulwell resurrected the issue in his contribution to the Sectoral Debate in Parliament on Tuesday.

According to Paulwell, "Utilising nuclear energy, as one, just one, of a menu of options to reduce our country's dependence on oil."

Hazardous

Prime Minister Bruce Golding had scoffed at the suggestion, which was made by Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller in the Budget Debate earlier this year.

"We have looked at that but we have ruled it out for a number of reasons: environmental concerns, high capital costs, long lead time (15 years) and the challenges involved in operations, maintenance, waste disposal and decommissioning.

"The siting of such a plant would also be hazardous in a country of Jamaica's size and population density," Golding said during the Budget Debate in April.

Dismissing good idea

But Paulwell has criticised the Government for dismissing the idea.

"The present administration has a tendency to find problems for many solutions, dismissing good ideas before exploring their worth merely because they are perhaps a bit 'out of the box'," Paulwell said.

He added: "... Nuclear energy production has come a far way from the doomsday scenarios painted by science-fiction writers. Nuclear facilities are now much safer and cheaper to construct."

Golding had said that the start-up time and cost of constructions rendered the nuclear idea unwise. But Paulwell on Tuesday contended that "higher start-up costs are the norm for virtually all non-fossil fuel-energy sources."

"What is important is the savings to be realised over time and to break the vicious cycle of dependency on imported fuel. The time to act is now if we are to wean ourselves from a dependence on imported oil," Paulwell said.

He also contended that it was safe to have nuclear reactors located in the country, pointing to research which he said found "you would have to live near a nuclear power plant for over 2,000 years to get the same amount of radiation exposure that you get from a single diagnostic medical X-ray. "

Meanwhile, Paulwell also chided the Government for failing to implement the new energy policy.

"There are many shortcomings in the approach to energy by the current administration. The failure of the Government to implement the new Energy Policy, despite inheriting from the previous administration, a detailed green paper on energy is worrying and speaks to a deeper malaise," Paulwell said.

He added: "We must have a workable policy if we are to address one of our greatest challenges. I want to warn against complacency by the Government as the current oil prices could change rapidly and we would again be faced with another energy crisis. That now looms large, especially as the global economy starts to recover from the debilitating recession."