Speeches
Speech by Fiona O'Malley to PD Annual Conference
'Energy: the issues for Ireland' Specch by Fiona O'Malley TD to the Progressive Democrats Annual Conference in Cork, April 9th, 2005
In the wake of the US Iraq war and surging oil prices Energy Policy has once more become one of the top agenda items for Governments all over the world. In a recent report Goldman Sachs predicted that oil prices could reach prices as high as $105 a barrel due strong global demand coupled with instability in oil producing countries.
The fact is that most of the world’s energy supplies are located in the most unstable regions of the world, the Middle East, Russia, and Africa. Security of supply is an issue not only for Ireland but for the European Union as a whole.
Ireland is particularly vulnerable as we import virtually all of energy supplies and all of our oil supplies. We have already felt the impact of rising energy costs. According to the National Competitiveness Council Ireland is now the second most expensive country for industrial electricity users, prices in this sector have increased by 40% over the three years to 2004, furthermore the average Irish industrial user is paying 40% more than a UK counterpart. This, despite the fact that we have supposedly liberalized the market for electricity in Ireland. Something isn’t working.
As if these challenges were not enough both Ireland and the EU have signed up to the Koyoto Agreement, which simply put, limits the amount of Greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide, methane amongst others, we can produce to a level in 1990. In Ireland's case this means that we can produce 13% more of these gases than we produced in 1990. At the moment we are producing 25% over the 1990 level so on paper and legally we are 12% over our allowance. This has serious financial implications for Ireland, as we will face heavy fines if we fail to comply with our obligations.
Industrial policy in Ireland has sold this country as a player in The Knowledge Economy. Data Centres, which are at the core of this business, are notoriously energy intensive: an average industrial strength Data Centre uses as much electricity as Dublin Airport. If we are to pursue this developing Irelands role in the knowledge economy, security of electricity supply is vital.
Increasingly our electricity supply is becoming less secure and the cost is rising rapidly. We need action to cope with this situation and we need it fast. The only way to secure the supply of electricity is to make sure your electricity is coming from a variety of sources. And that is where Ireland could and should and if I had my way would play a leading role, by harnessing both wind and wave to produce energy.
The environmental concerns about global warming are very real. In his book called “collapse” writer Jared Diamond, examines why civilizations collapse and disappear. Of the dozen or so civilizations he examines nearly all failed through resource depletion and over exploitation of the environment.
Today we too are facing issues of resource depletion. We do not know how close we are to reaching the tipping point for world oil production i.e. the point at which the world’s production of oil begins to fall, but we do know that demand is increasing for oil and other natural resources. China's achievement of First World standards will approximately double the entire world's human resource use and therefore its environmental impact. It will also have a profound impact on Global warming.
Our location nation off the coast of Europe offers us a huge advantage when it comes to renewable energy we have some of the best potential for wind and wave energy of any country on the planet.
While we have the potential, it is a disgrace that we have not moved faster to encourage the development of renewable energy. 18 months ago the potential was described to me, as “Ireland could become the wind Arabs” that captured my imagination so I set about researching this area. It is true the potential is vast. Government cannot afford to miss this opportunity. That is why we will be bringing before the General Council an Energy policy document in the near future.
Remarks by ESB National Grid that wind energy plants might have to be shut down for a period when demand was low and the Energy regulator's lengthy moratorium last year on grid connections from wind farms, which had already dealt a significant blow to investor confidence, have now been compounded by the regulator's most recent communication where he advised the minister not to allow any more energy from wind on the electricity supply system- the National Grid.
The statement belies an ignorance of the advances that are taking place which allow for the storage of energy generated by wind.
The Government's Green Paper on Sustainable Energy set out a target of 500MWs (mainly from wind energy) to be reached by 2005. There are only 223MWs of wind-generated electricity on the system currently. Many experts believe that there is little or no chance of this or our other targets further into the future. The market would seem to agree with them. Airtricity recently said that it will not develop any further wind projects in the Republic because of uncertainty in the market, and hopefully our guest speaker will be able to give us a perspective on this.
I believe that the challenge for Government is not simply whether we can reach the target of 13.2 per cent of our energy from renewable sources by 2010, but how the Government can maximise the potential of renewable energy and create in Ireland a centre of expertise in renewable energy technology.
It is clear that other countries in Europe are now far ahead of Ireland in the use of renewable energy. A wind turbine in typical Irish conditions produces twice as much energy as one sited in Germany. Yet Germany is well ahead of Ireland in the use of wind energy. For example the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein produces 30 per cent of the region's total electricity needs. The share of renewable energy sources in total German electricity consumption jumped to over 10 per cent, a figure the government intends to double by 2020. It is estimated that the use of wind and other renewable energy have seen a reduction of around 60 million tonnes of CO2 emissions annually in Germany. Other European regions are following suit. The Navarre region of northern Spain produces 50 per cent of its electricity from wind power. And Remember they are not as well clocated as we are to harness that energy…..we could be doing better.
The technology to support renewable wind energy is now maturing and the cost of the technology and of wind energy is now falling significantly. But wind is not the only source of renewable energy that Ireland can potentially benefit from.
Given Ireland’s location I believe we should be investing heavily in research in this area. Our economic prosperity has been built on technology designed elsewhere I believe that is time we became the designers and not just the manufacturers of others people bright ideas we have the engineering and the scientific talent to do so.
Of course energy is more than just about electricity, we also have to look at the fuels for transport sector is one of the most of the largest contributors to green house gas emissions. Bio-fuels that is fuel derived from oils developed from plants. Bio-fuels are now an established commercial fuel in both Germany and Austria where 350,000 tonnes and 31,400tonnes were produced in 2001. We have an excellent climate for the production of bio-fuels I believe that if we are really serious about tackling climate change we in Europe and we in Ireland will have to develop a serious bio-fuels industry.
The potential is enormous and I am delighted that we have here today someone who sees the potential and is prepared to take the risks. He also sees the shortcomings and that is why I have invited him here today to speak to us Dr Eddie O'Connor. Dr Eddie O’Connor is Chief Executive of Airtricity, which successfully entered the Irish electricity market as the first supplier of wind energy and is the only company in Europe, which markets and sells 100% green electricity. Historicity is the leading independent competitor in the Irish marketplace. Eddie was formerly Managing Director of Board na Mona, where he was responsible for the repositioning of the company. He is Vice President of the European Wind Energy Association