To quote the legendary New York Yankees baseball coach Yogi Berra, “it’s déjà vu all over again” when it comes to the Irish state and its gas reserves.
Other than around 25% of the requirement that comes from the Corrib field, the state is totally dependent on gas imports and over 70% dependent on overall energy imports. In addition, the Corrib supply will run out in the not too-distant future.
In September last year Gript reported that as winter approached and as the war in Ukraine went on that there was no gas in storage here. Guess what? There is still no gas in storage here.
Ireland is the big gap in the middle below. The EU is at over 94% storage and every member state other than Ireland is at close to 90% or over.
Gas Infrastructure Europe – AGSI (gie.eu)
The absurd aspect of this last year was that it came shortly after Minister Eamon Ryan and one of his possible successors, Darren O’Rourke of Sinn Féin, had been raméising about “green hydrogen” and an imagined future in which the state will be exporting “green hydrogen” gas overseas.
This is somewhat on par with a lad who has a pothole outside his door planning to turn it into an Olympic-sized swimming pool. And sure, hosting the Olympics themselves, and why not.
The surreal element of this year’s total lack of any gas reserves is that An Bord Pleanála, apparently on the grounds of state policy, has just last week turned down again an application to build a Liquified Natural Gas terminal in the Shannon Estuary.
The proposal was for an LNG terminal at Tarbert, and a connected 600MW power station. The project involved a proposed €650 million investment which would have had a major positive impact on the local economy in a region with above average unemployment, as well as addressing part of the state’s energy requirements.
All of which apparently fade in comparison to the fretting of the Greens and the crusty agitators who opposed the development.
The state policy in question is that the state, for the self-indulgent ideological reasons of a small minority party, is opposed to importing gas that has been accessed through fracking. In its decisions An Bord Pleanála said that allowing the development to go ahead would be “contrary to the proper planning and sustainable development of the area”.
According to Don Moore of the Irish Academy of Engineering’s Climate Action Committee, who was interviewed by Newstalk following the Bord Pleanála decision, not only will the refusal of the terminal continue to ensure that the state is largely dependent on imported gas, but that, of those imports, “20% of the gas is actually fracked LNG coming from the US to Ireland”.
Moore said that the failure to allow the construction of the Shannon terminal not only places the Irish state at the “very end of the European gas grid,” via Scotland, but that such dependence and the lingering volatility of supply places us in real danger of power cuts in the near future.
He said the Government “have taken a policy decision that we should not have LNG in Ireland, at least our own LNG” – and that Ireland was now left in a “vulnerable position”.
“It’s a high-risk strategy because we’re at the very end of the European gas grid here in Ireland,” he said.
“We’re dependent on connection to the European gas grid, we’re connected by a pipeline from Scotland.
“For the foreseeable future, probably until 2040, we are going to be dependent upon gas-fired power generation to back up our energy supply.
“In other words, no matter how much more renewable energy we build, when the wind doesn’t blow we will be dependent on gas-fired power stations to provide electricity.”
The engineering expert also said he couldn’t understand why Ireland is the exception.
“Why is Ireland an exception in this regard? Every other country in Europe with a coastline either has LNG import facilities or is building them,” he said.
“Germany had none when they were importing all their gas from Russia, they now have three and very soon they will have another two more.
“So, why would Ireland, in the most exposed position, adopt this high-risk strategy?
“It does make no sense, and it will expose Ireland in the future to power cuts [and] power blackouts.”
While the Irish Care Bears fret about all sorts of bullshit, their Wokey friends in Europe like the Germans just get on with looking after their own.
Since their dependence on Russian imported gas came to an end with the Ukrainian war, the Germans have built three brand new LNG storage facilities and are in the process of constructing two more.
And the Greens and socialists – the greeny leftie “comrades” of Ryan and O’Rourke – are in power in Germany. Pixieheads indeed.
Any sovereign state worth its salt would have ignored the crusty left and others 50 years ago and built nuclear power stations. It would also have moved to develop tidal energy on the Atlantic at a time when it represented a viable long term investment.
Instead, it has substituted any long term thinking of benefit to the state and its citizens for a smorgasbord of faddish crusty climate fanaticism. And this is all driven by a party that will be doing well to have half a dozen city and county councillors this time next year.