Gas may test EU solidarity like nothing before

The commitment in the Programme for Government two years ago to set the State on the path to having 70 per cent of its electricity generated from renewable sources is a noble one and worth fighting for. But even Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan was forced to concede late last year that in order to keep the lights on, with demand for energy only rising, several new gas-fired power plants needed to be built over the next decade.

That, however, is where the intellectual honesty stops. Because Ryan seems content to continue to have Ireland import most of the gas needed to generate the power rather than put himself in a political awkward position with the Green Party’s base by allowing Irish resources to be tapped.

The banning of new exploration licences last year is one thing. But it is increasingly clear the Minister does not want to be seen to allow existing licences to run their course.

Take Europa Oil & Gas’s exploration licence for an area close to the Corrib field (which currently supplies about 30 per cent of Ireland’s gas needs), which will lapse at the end of the month if Ryan does not grant an extension.

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Europa’s chairman Brian O’Cathain, who ran the Irish operations of Enterprise Oil when it discovered the Corrib field in 1996, puts the odds of another such field being found as “one in three or four”.

“It’s not a slam dunk, but it’s a reasonable chance,” he says. He reckons the so-called Inishkea field could be operational, if resources were proven, within four to five years.

It goes without saying that the decarbonisation of the economy cannot occur quickly enough, but we’ll be in a transition period for years. And unpalatable decisions need to be made.

Corrib gas, according to Europa, is one of the lowest carbon gases in Europe, much lower than long distance pipeline gas from Norway and the UK that is piped into this island through three interconnectors that run from Moffat in Scotland (which raises its own security-of-supply risks).

Similarly, there has been almost radio silence from Ryan’s department on an application Providence Resources submitted in April last year for a key permit to further appraise its Barryroe oil and gas prospect off the Cork coast.

With officials and leaders across Europe growing increasingly anxious about the threat of civil unrest if Russian gas is turned off completely or gas prices soar to unaffordable levels, EU solidarity may be tested like never before. Ireland is in the deeply unpleasant position of being at the end of the pipeline.