Seán Keyes 🖐️

Not good

@PeterSmartpower SMRs no?

point Japan was considered to have the best run nuclear industry in the World).The Chernobyl disaster is estimated to have cost €216 billion. The LCOE also does not include the cost of storing nuclear waste for tens of thousands of years.

The case for Nuclear in Ireland - I am starting this thread here because there are so many people calling for it now with no idea of what they are talking about. The cost & construction time for nuclear plants is so onerous, the companies involved usually go bust along the way +

@PhilLawton Yeah I agree actually the KOTH meme was a bit much. But anyway — my big thing is affordability as you know so I’m pro ADUs. If you have ideas that would improve affordability I’m for them too

@Keyes Both!

The 'Housing Unlocked' mews proposal (noted in article) was a nicely detailed project, with an analysis of potential mews spaces within the bounded area of the M50. It is a wholly different prospect from the Progress Ireland sample of 41 houses sprawled across Ireland!

@PhilLawton Depends on what you value — spatial geography or affordability

@Keyes You seem blissfully unaware of what your own data says. But, either way, once you deregulate on a spatial level, you lose control. This is what makes this idea as it currently stands so dangerous as a public policy

Hefty majority for considering nuclear power. If, as looks likely, the technology advances and modular reactors small enough to be trucked into place - to be used in factories and data centres etc - energy/climate worries would be a thing of the past.

@PhilLawton Especially since 70% of them would go just where presumably we’d want them to go, in 30dph suburbs

@PhilLawton I get your point as well — it in some ways worsens dispersed settlement patterns. But in the context of a dire housing shortage, this feels like weak tea

Mews for me, but not for thee. Great piece by Colin Murphy on how modern-day mews homes can help make a big addition to the housing supply, reduce sprawl, etc.

@PhilLawton And, again, the point is that these are homes that wouldn’t be built otherwise. Which if we care about affordability is an argument that’s hard to beat

@Keyes That is all well and good and I understand that logic. But, ala New York, for this to work there has to be spatial deliniation/boundaries at an urban/urban-regional scale. Otherwise, you get the opposite effect.

@PhilLawton I’d be of the view that gently densifying suburbs without pouring a lot of concrete is among the most sustainable forms of development. That’s leaving aside the impact on affordability which of course is the whole point

@Keyes Grand, Sean, so we can refer to the 41 that were deemed viable. Again, I would not be happy pushing a policy idea that results in reinforcing uncontrolled development across the country. We have seen this play out before: it is a form of disjointed and unsustainable development.

@PhilLawton The sample was 200.

@Keyes 41 was your final final sample. If we take this at face value, your data shows more car oriented development - particularly in rural areas.

Affordable homes are good 🙂 independent.ie/opinion/commen…

I am proud to announce my first bill with the ambition to legalise nuclear energy in Ireland. 101 years ago, Ireland broke ground on the Shannon Hydroelectric Scheme. In our past we had an ambition to do what was necessary. Now we must do so again. businesspost.ie/politics/new-l…

Affordable housing is good.

Regulations should be judged by their effects, not their intentions. The latest energy performance regulations were supposed to reduce emissions and save money. But they have meant fewer and more expensive homes. My last article for @ProgressIreland made this case and was reported in the @IrishMailSunday by Colm McGuirk

I spoke about the frightening difference in metro construction costs between European and English-speaking countries.

Sheds are sheds but modular homes are nice. I stayed in one with my family on holidays. We should build nice modular homes. An A2 rated one of 40sqm or so costs about 100k.

@bswud @ProgressIreland Quite a character 😬

@Keyes @ProgressIreland In fact they self identify as a Nazi lol

Affordable housing is good.

In the most developed countries, with ultra-high-legitimacy governments, the public has faith that government railway projects will be prosecuted efficiently in the interests of the country, and it is possible to easily and cheaply acquire the necessary land, cutting through countryside or even urban residential areas. Trying to do this in medium-legitimacy countries like Britain is a disaster. Lower-legitimacy countries actually do *better* than Britain, because they are more realistic. New Delhi's metro used 95% land along thoroughfares, land which the city already owned or could acquire with little controversy. The parts of HS1 in Britain that did this were built quickly and affordably. HS2 could have followed the M40 for a slightly less optimal route. If it had done so, it might have cost a quarter as much as it did, not meeting huge local controversy and having to spend tens of billions on legitimacy-generation schemes like buying football pitches, building expensive viaducts and cuttings, and so on. All because Britain has to pretend that it is still the 1950s, or that we are Denmark, and that the public will just knuckle under and accept anything the government does, in the name of solidarity. This excellent article illustrates how Jakarta, guided by Japanese experts, also used the Delhi method, building along thoroughfares to avoid the controversy of compulsorily acquiring land. And it went great! indevelopmentmag.com/jakarta-transi…