Sir, – Robert Kane, the great chemist and founding president of Queen’s College Cork (UCC), first calculated the water power of the Shannon as it left Lough Derg and proposed that the power from the 100 foot fall be harnessed by water mills for an industrial centre based on the port of Limerick (Industrial Resources of Ireland, 1844).
The discovery and harnessing of electricity came quite quickly. Turbines which efficiently convert power from one kind to another were developed. The steam turbine which converts steam to mechanical power was patented in 1884 by Charles Parsons, son of the Earl of Rosse. In the 1880s, the first Niagara power systems, with hydroelectric turbines designed by Nicholas Tesla, the very great Serbian-American engineer, went on line, and interest spread worldwide.
Proposals to build the Shannon hydroelectric power station were mooted in the early 1900s including one to the British Board of Trade in 1922. At this stage, a 26-year-old Irish engineer, educated at UCD and UCG, Thomas McLoughlin, who was working with Siemens in Germany, promoted the idea, providing advice to Minister Gilligan. Gilligan brought the matter to the Cabinet which took the momentous decision to build Ardnacrusha against huge opposition. McLaughlin seems to have been a crucial figure in the debate.
He became managing director of the ESB, another great scientific and engineering enterprise.
The question for today is whether Irish society can be as farsighted as it was in 1922-23. Scientists and engineers have calculated that Ireland can become a net energy exporter, using a combination of wind power, wave power and pumped storage. The energy infrastructure would have to be transformed and there would be substantial changes in the landscape, probably affecting some beautiful parts of the country.
Think of the environmental objections which would be raised today to damming the Shannon (or building the South or Bull Walls, or Dún Laoghaire or Howth Harbour, or Poulaphouca), and the legal challenges from agricultural and fishing interests.
We need to find effective political and legal mechanisms for balancing the strategic energy needs of this country against all the other legitimate interests and finding a way to make timely decisions to encourage progress on the wonderful ideas which I first heard about through Spiritofireland.
If we can streamline the planning process, Ireland can tap into the great pool of its renewable energy resources with the help of private enterprise to the benefit of her people. We need visionary projects to ensure energy security for Ireland for years to come. Some sacrifices will have to be made.
This is what was done at Ardnacrusha in the 1920s. – Yours, etc,