Government chose the wrong option for Corrib gas find

Gas should have been used to generate electricity in a modern turbine plant, writes John M Simmie.

Gas should have been used to generate electricity in a modern turbine plant, writes John M Simmie.

The ongoing saga of the Corrib gas field rumbles on generating much heat, not just in the media, but also on the streets of Galway and elsewhere.

How have we arrived at this point? What were the key decisive moments that have prevented this vital project from going ahead smoothly and have led to such an unsatisfactory situation for not only the country, but also the Rossport Five?

Some have argued that the problem stems from the original deal - that national assets were given away and that this has resulted in the present impasse.

READ MORE

This is a complete misreading of the situation. At that time, the country had neither the trained personnel nor the funds to wildcat for oil and gas. It would have been a giant gamble at a time when our economy could not have sustained such a shock.

It must not be forgotten either that the actual success rate in terms of discoveries per wells drilled has been poor in comparison to other exploration areas, with some commentators putting it as low as a one in 50 chance of hitting "paydirt".

So the Government was desperate to get some effort under way, and at the time, there was little dissent. Of course once commercial reserves were discovered, then the hindsighters came into their own and twaddled on about the theft of national assets, etc, etc.

I believe that the decisive error arose at a later stage when the Government, on the advice of their civil servants, decided to bring the gas ashore, process it and pipe it to major conurbations.

This was the Kinsale model which had worked well in its time, but no thought was given to changed circumstances, not just in Ireland but in our post-Kyoto world.

It was clear to me that determined local opposition could be built solely around the fact that there was little or no benefit to the local community, either in terms of long-term employment or even in terms of enjoying the benefits of supply.

Although arguments were put forward on safety issues, these would never be as convincing since all human activities carry some risk, and gas pipelines and treatment plants rate pretty low on this scale. A major road, for example, poses more risk every day of the week to the communities that it traverses than a pipeline.

The situation would have been totally different if the natural gas had been used to generate electricity in a modern gas-fired turbine plant close to the landing site. The resulting electricity would have been easily distributed to each home, farm and factory throughout Ireland, including Mayo.

Since the electricity grid is in a ramshackle state, as we have been warned by the electricity regulator, an additional investment in the grid would have been utterly beneficial, and would have paid further dividends when wind and wave generated power becomes more prevalent as they must if we are to meet our target of 25 per cent from renewables by 2025.

In addition, we have little spare capacity and our existing electricity generating plants are running well below international norms. In contrast, the solution chosen of distributing the gas to some regions of the country to be burnt in small and largely inefficient domestic boilers, is equivalent to frittering away a precious resource.

None of this happened, so we are now in the situation where the lack of security of supply is putting the future economic health of the country at risk. With rising oil and gas prices driven by the four horsemen of declining levels of discovery, political instability in producing countries, peaking of production and the booming economies of China and India, this is not the time to be so exposed.

What conclusions can we draw from this sorry tale?

In technical issues Government ministers must rely on their in- house advisers; since few of these have either a scientific or engineering background they must learn to cast their net more widely and consult those with expertise.

Professor John M Simmie is professor of chemistry at NUI Galway