All four parties on Derry City Council have rejected a proposal by a local businessman to consider building a nuclear power plant in Londonderry.
A nuclear power plant for Londonderry has been proposed
Robert Andrews made a presentation to the council on Thursday claiming a nuclear plant would boost the economy.
Mr Andrews said he wanted a plant that would generate 2,000 megawatt hours at the old power station in Coolkeeragh.
SDLP councillor Thomas Conway said Ireland should be looking towards other forms of energy generation.
"We have a population of several million people - we should be able to be energy sufficient through environmentally sensitive projects like wind, the growing of bio-fuel, wave and solar energy," he said.
"We should be putting all our efforts into that rather than looking at schemes which are going to potentially cause huge, huge difficulties for our society."
Mr Andrews said that the plant would provide 500 jobs for 60 years.
However, Sinn Fein councillor Kevin Campbell said there were "better ways" to create new jobs.
"Building a motorway from Derry to Belfast, a railway line straight through from the north to the south, you could create jobs that way," he said.
"These are dirty jobs, in reality you could be putting people's lives at risk.
"For the value of 500 jobs there could be thousands of jobs created in Altnagelvin hospital treating people."