When I raised the question here last week as to whether Ireland should aspire to being a leader on climate change with the most ambitious targets or be content to be in the following pack, I guessed that some feathers would be ruffled.
Letters published in response claimed that to even ask that question was "absurd and untenable", needed to be "quickly dismissed", and was "more insidious than climate change scepticism" because it appeared to "reasonably question whether we should inconvenience ourselves at all".
Another correspondent claimed that the article “beggared belief” because I did not raise the issue of data centres. In fact I did.
I should also put on the record that as far back as 2017 I raised at length in the Oireachtas Climate Committee the potentially disastrous and unsustainable effects on electricity demand and supply of allowing a planned slew of data centres to be built.
Eirgrid and IDA representatives, accepting the implications for power supply of 75 per cent growth in demand for such centres for 2030 to 2040, said that we “welcomed” data centres, and pointed out that we were “competing” with Denmark to locate them here.
A year later, in 2018, the same committee met. This time the department responsible for climate policy sent in its officials. I again raised at length the apparent absence of any whole-of-government approach on data centres. This time I was fobbed off with a statement that their department was liaising with the Enterprise Department to bring a joint memorandum to the Cabinet on the issue.
Data centre
Last week we learned that we now have to create emergency power generators in Dublin to avoid the risk of blackouts. Coal-burning Moneypoint has had to be fired up again.
We also see that Apple is reapplying for planning permission for a massive data centre in Athenry, Co Galway, a project that would increase the national demand for electricity by 8 per cent when fully built out. These are facts.
If Ryan believes nuclear power is an option, let him say so. If he thinks we can avoid nuclear power, let him say how
But the Government is yet again commissioning studies on developing data centres and asking their owners to demonstrate how they can be powered by renewables.
The bottom line is that Ireland is pursuing irreconcilable goals – increasing demand for electricity by 40 per cent while hoping it can all be done with renewable capacity.
We are in no position now to guarantee electricity supply from renewables. I queried how we propose to make nearly every aspect of our lives dependent on electricity – from home-heating to private cars and public transport and right across the spectrum of economic and social activity including IT and communication – if we are to depend on wind and solar power. Is that insidious?
I asked whether it can be done. I drew readers’ attention to Eamonn Ryan’s Delphic statement that he would not rule out nuclear power.
How do we square this circle of ever-increasing demand for and dependence on electricity to the point where it is the sole means of economic survival with bland aspirations of renewable supply? It won’t just be “all right on the night”.
If Ryan believes nuclear power is an option, let him say so. If he thinks we can avoid nuclear power, let him say how.
Will we always need hydro-carbon-based electricity-generation capacity? Is he asserting that there is a viable alternative such as some form of reliable massive battery storage system coupled with renewables? Is that feasible?
The truth is that we committed a year ago to plant 22 million trees a year from 2020 to 2040. That is 85,000 trees every working day
Is his department planning for these options or just not ruling them out? Is there any deep departmental analysis on these issues and options that he is willing to share with us?
Hope and vision are admirable political virtues; but without planning and implementation they are of no more value than faith without good works.
Afforestation
I also briefly mentioned our afforestation targets and commitments in the same heretical piece last week. I strongly support afforestation – both commercial and environmental – and I have consistently spoken in favour of afforestation and against objectors.
The truth is that we committed a year ago to plant 22 million trees a year from 2020 to 2040. That is 85,000 trees every working day to plant well over 400,000,000 trees.
The previous government had committed to an even more unrealistic target to be achieved by 2030. Already this target is acknowledged to be unachievable due to the forestry licensing administrative debacle. This is another case of aspiration outrunning reality.
For decades it was an article of faith that the Shannon had to be drained. When it became clear that it was impossible, we came around to the view that it was undesirable anyway.
It isn’t heresy to require of aspirational politicians that they show how goals they set for us can be met. They aren’t a new hierarchy whose word must go unchallenged.