The Government needs to shake up its act and take a serious look at alternative energy, writes Enda Kenny
Most modern alarm clocks have a feature called the snooze button. It shuts off the alarm for a few minutes and lets the sleeper snooze a while longer.
If you keep pressing the snooze button, you can stay in bed all day. When it comes to Ireland's energy policy, and especially our over-reliance on oil, this Government still has its pyjamas on.
In 2003 the price of a barrel of oil stood at around $35. Last year, and again last week, it exceeded $70. Many economists warn that the days of $100 per barrel of oil may not be too far away.
We have already seen forecasts of petrol reaching €1.20 a litre within weeks.
The energy crisis poses a major economic challenge. Rising oil prices, global instability and a general acceptance that oil reserves will grow less and less dependable should act as a wake-up call for those who think we can continue as we are and not risk major economic problems in the decades ahead.
Coupled with this price pressure are the repercussions of our failure to meet our commitments under the Kyoto agreement.
It is worth noting that, when considering the costs of these proposals, if agreed commitments on emissions under the Kyoto agreement are not met, Ireland will face a bill of up to €400 million.
This is neither sensible nor sustainable. We have to recognise the fact - and seek to change it - that Ireland's consumption of renewable energy is extremely low.
It is time for Ireland to get serious about renewable energy. In the absence of any co-ordinated strategy from the Government in this vital area, Fine Gael recently published Energy for the Future. This plan has been developed on foot of some initial proposals unveiled at our national conference last November and is significant for several reasons, primary among them being the joined-up thinking that lies at the plan's core.
It was drawn up by the party's environment, transport, energy and agriculture spokespersons to ensure its policy proposals were co-ordinated and consistent.
This is the type of approach needed to secure our longer-term energy requirements.
Transport is Ireland's biggest carbon dioxide producer and, together with home heating, generates 60 per cent of the country's energy demands.
We know that car-use has doubled since 1980, and that if there is no policy change by 2020, it will have doubled again. And, of course, the greatest growth in cars has been in the larger, energy-guzzling ones.
At any level, that kind of growth in car usage is not sustainable - from a congestion point of view or from an environmental point of view. From an economic point of view it is madness to leave ourselves dependent on an uncertain and increasingly expensive oil supply to move all our goods and almost all our people.
Fine Gael is committed to switch those cars and trucks away from absolute dependence on imported fossil fuel to the use of biofuels. The beauty of biofuels is that they are renewable, and they are cleaner, producing 60 per cent less greenhouse gases than fossil fuels, and would of course give us at least a partial domestic transport energy supply source.
The plan contains a set of recommendations, costed at €488 million up to 2010, that will move Ireland definitively down the road of a more sustainable approach to our national energy policy.
Some of the key proposals include:
• Removal of all excise duty on biofuels produced from renewable energy crops,
• Reforming the Vehicle Registration Tax (VRT) system through the establishment of energy-efficient labelling for motor vehicles with lower and higher rates of VRT for fuel efficient and inefficient vehicles respectively.
• Create a market for biofuels by legislating that all motor fuels must include a blend of fuel from renewable sources. All petrol sold will include a 5 per cent bio-ethanol mix and all diesels would contain a 2 per cent bio-diesel mix.
• Provide seed capital for biofuel producer groups who would be chosen, through public competition, to operate a selected number of biofuel processing plants.
• Targeted grants of between €500 and €3,500 to encourage householders to convert to renewable energy for home heating,
• Require all public transport vehicles and public service vehicles to convert, where practical and feasible, to forms of biofuel.
• Establish a centre of excellence for alternative energy charged with ensuring Ireland develops a world-class alternative energy sector. Renewable energy has been contributing nearly 2 per cent of Ireland's primary energy supply since 1990. In 2003, biomass contributed 1.2 per cent, hydropower 0.34 per cent and wind energy 0.26 per cent of Ireland's energy requirements.
However, as the price of oil climbs ever higher - and supply becomes less and less secure- we must strike a better balance. Our European partners already have a head start. In 2001, Austria was sourcing 22 per cent of its energy consumption from renewable sources.
The Fine Gael plan for alternative energy outlines how we will begin to tackle the problem of our over-dependence on imported, unclean energy and ensure that we can reach that ambitious target of 33 per cent of our energy being generated from renewable sources.
• Enda Kenny TD is the leader of Fine Gael.