The delusional thinking that dominates public debate in this country on so many issues has been illustrated once again by our lack of preparedness for the energy crisis unleashed by Donald Trump’s reckless war in the Middle East.
It is not simply the price of petrol and heating oil that will be impacted if this war continues indefinitely; there is a very real prospect that we will not be able to generate enough electricity to keep the lights on because of our dependence on the supply of imported natural gas.
The latest energy crisis should have surprised no one. Since the oil shock of the 1970s we have been fully aware that our dependence on gas to generate electricity – and oil to fuel our transport system – could leave us at the mercy of international events.
The response of Irish political leaders and policymakers has been to talk earnestly about reducing our dependence on carbon while creating a welter of complex regulations that have led to endless delays in building the offshore wind capacity to generate the electricity we need.
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In typical fashion, we have adopted a high moral tone on carbon while failing to do what is required to give us energy independence. And God forbid that anybody should suggest doing what France has so successfully managed and build an efficient nuclear power network to free us from dependence on outsiders.
To make matters worse, five years ago, the then government, at the insistence of the Greens, banned exploration for natural gas off our shores. The rationale for the policy was to promote the use of non-carbon sources for electricity generation, but the move never made sense on any level. Even if the loudly trumpeted plan to build a network of offshore wind turbines off the west coast had gone ahead, we would still need alternative sources of power on the days when the wind does not blow.
Natural gas is by far the least damaging of the carbon-based sources for electricity generation and, given that we would always require another source besides wind, having our own supply was always the best and obvious option.
We still rely on natural gas for almost half our electricity generation, but 80 per cent of it is imported. While about a third of our electricity comes from wind, this proportion has remained static for a number of years because of the failure to get on with building the large offshore turbines that are needed.
An ancillary problem has been the failure to upgrade the electricity grid to transmit power generated by extra wind capacity. As with every other proposed infrastructural development, objectors have availed of our Byzantine planning rules to try to block the necessary work.
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The net result is that we have continued to rely on natural gas as the biggest source of electricity generation. The Corrib field, which is due to run out in the coming decade, produces just 20 per cent of our needs, with the bulk of our gas coming through the pipeline from the UK.
The latest energy shortage should prompt an immediate re-examination of the exploration ban. There is a potential source of gas not far from the Corrib field which, if confirmed, could be easily harnessed, and there may be others elsewhere.
So far, instead of allowing exploration for natural gas to resume in our coastal waters, the State is planning to take the lead in building a liquid natural gas storage (LNG) facility in the Shannon Estuary with the aim of giving us a strategic reserve by 2030. The fact that a likely source of LNG is fracked gas from the US will be another sign of our doublethink. We are totally opposed to fracking at home but if needs must, we will buy it in.
It is the same with nuclear power. We like to think of ourselves as a nuclear-free zone but we are currently building the multi-billion-euro Celtic connector to France to get access to their nuclear power. Fianna Fáil MEP Billy Kelleher pointed out during the week that 12 EU member states generate electricity through nuclear, with 50 per cent of all carbon-free electricity in Europe coming from that source.
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“Ireland’s position right now is one of pure hypocrisy when it comes to electricity generation. We import electricity from the UK that uses LNG as a fuel source, despite our own ban on fracking, and soon we will import nuclear-generation electricity from France through the Celtic interconnector. We need to stop lying to ourselves, and, at the very least, investigate the possibilities surrounding nuclear.”
The current energy crisis should prompt a bit of realism and honesty about our situation. Politicians need to start looking at the State’s actual needs instead of adopting virtuous poses that leave us at the mercy of international events. Government supports to help people cope with higher energy prices may provide a short-term fix, but hard decisions to ensure the future of the State’s energy supplies are required as a matter of urgency.
