Sir, - The Irish Government is in danger of losing a grant of nearly £1 million from the European Union and a great deal of international prestige because of an inexplicable delay in announcing the winner of a contest to build a wave power station. The entries were submitted to the Energy Technology Support Unit (ETSU) at Harwell, England, for assessment and a recommendation was arrived at in February.
Since then, the Department of Public Enterprise in Dublin has chosen silence and indeed shown a lack of enterprise itself. It has been mulling over the recommendation and while it does so it has lost much of the window of opportunity during this summer. The European Union grant is conditional upon the station being up and in production by the end of 1999. Given the delay that has already been suffered, it is going to be a difficult operation to complete construction by then and it will be more than difficult, it will be impossible, if the decision is not made quickly.
In England, the wave power programme has been obstructed by established interests who do not wish to see a rival offering clean, renewable energy with the "fuel" arriving free. The nuclear lobby, in particular, has always regarded wave energy as a competitor.
But you have no nuclear lobby in Ireland and your Government's slowness in coming to a decision is baffling.
The Ministry is saying that this is "a very innovative technology and has had to be put through a very special wringer." In fact, it has been worked on for more than 25 years with units at sea off Japan. There is also one station on the island of Islay, in the Scottish Inner Hebrides, which has been built by Queen's University, Belfast, and has survived on the Atlantic coast through eight winters.
Ireland is in a particularly favourable situation for harvesting wave power, with some of the roughest and therefore most fruitful waves in the world crashing on to its west coast. It would be able to generate all the electricity it needs from the waves, and produce a surplus for export by wire to England and other countries, with no pollution. Why ever is it hesitating? - Yours, etc., David Ross, Author,
Power from the Waves,
Ruskin Park House,
Champion Hill,
London SE5.