Professor Brian Ó Gallachóir:

I will take the final question first. I apologise if I made it sound easy to sort out freight. My point in that was that there are areas that we have focused on and there are areas that are blind spots to us. For example, from our analysis on electrifying car transport by 2050, we see a challenge on the freight side. Because of the efficiency gains in moving to EVs, the proportion of energy drops. Energy use in cars is probably twice that of freight and that will flip around in 2050 in this analysis and, therefore, it is an issue that we need to sort out. Some of the solutions are emerging with EVs for larger fleets but some of the more proven measures are in the use of biofuels and biogas such as compressed natural gas vehicles. Gas Networks Ireland, GNI, is currently building out what is effectively a refuelling infrastructure for compressed natural gas to target freight vehicles.

If we can get biogas into the gas network in the way we do wind and solar electricity into the electricity network, we can have a renewable gas system powering our freight requirements. Hydrogen is another possibility, which is sometimes discussed in the context of freight. These are some of the options. However, my point was that it is a blind spot. It is not something we are talking about.

On obstacles to offshore renewable energy, it is an area where political leadership is essential. The biggest challenge is that of policy. It is not precisely my area, but from what I hear from colleagues, the maritime spatial planning framework is in disarray. There is none of the clarity offshore that exists with the onshore planning system. The political and policy challenges are the greatest ones there.

The costs in offshore wind energy have come down significantly. There are headlines associated with some of the numbers from auctions and so on. In this country, we have experience of auctions associated with onshore wind energy but not all of those projects were delivered. We must be careful to see what comes through to delivery and then assess the costs. However, the costs are coming down and, according to our analysis, will continue to come down. The only question is the pace. It has been faster than had been anticipated.

I would be inclined to look to Denmark as one example of best practice. They were one of the forerunners of developing offshore wind energy. Making offshore attractive is another challenge. It can be seen as a panacea if there are challenges with developing wind energy onshore. Sometimes it is as though the faraway hills are greener. There are other interests where one will find competition such as fisheries or the movement of ships. It is important to be careful about things that might be seen as an easier option until we try to get out there.

We are doing some research on tidal energy within the MaREI centre. There are some interesting companies emerging. There was a disappointing situation relating to OpenHydro which had looked promising, but there are other countries out there, such as GKinetic and others, that we are supporting to develop the technology. This is an area where there is an opportunity.

On the carbon tax trajectory, our national mitigation plan analysis, published in July 2017, suggested that we needed to go up to about €99 a tonne by 2030. This price has been adopted by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform which was using shadow prices of carbon. We have done some more recent analysis. A tricky aspect of this is that the cost of doing something different depends on the future price of alternatives, in this case oil and gas, and there is uncertainty around those. Some of our more recent analysis, with the drop in oil prices, suggests it might be more expensive. The figure of €100 might be a lower estimate. It is not necessarily that that will be the carbon tax price, but that is the price of mitigation. If we do other things, it should reduce that need. If we have grand schemes, regulations and obligations, they could all chip away at what might have to be the carbon tax itself.

I have not looked into the detail of what might be the best way to frame a carbon tax. The early analyses suggested simply using it to reduce labour tax, so that the thing that is bad is taxed, not the thing that is good. If carbon tax is increased, then the labour tax is also reduced. Different ideas are emerging now such as using it for dedicated climate action activities or, indeed, just handing it back to people. Therefore, for instance, one could take €400 million, divide it across the population of Ireland and hand it back. That would help offset energy poverty, and those emitting higher levels would pay a greater amount. However, we have not looked at this in detail and they are just some reflections on things I have seen.

On agriculture, given our Grain and Agriculture Free Trade Association, GAFTA, target of 100 million tonnes, the analysis suggests it would be 18 million tonnes. That would knock off about a fifth of the GAFTA target in terms of the 2030 target, but Teagasc would be the best organisation to speak to on that. If it is 18 million tonnes and our GAFTA target is 100 million tonnes, that gives a sense of where things sit. There is a provision within the directive to use flexibility measures, so we could reduce the amount of emissions trading scheme, ETS, credits that we auction and could also use some offsetting, effectively sequestering carbon. Those flexibility measures would knock about 50 million tonnes off that 100 million tonnes in addition to the Teagasc element which would knock off a further 18 million tonnes.

On the soundness of carbon capture and storage, CCS, a colleague who is not at this meeting visited some of the plants in the US where CCS is not so much associated with power generation than enhanced oil recovery. The technology for that is well developed. Plans were put in place about ten years ago. Like many plans put in place, and this is something I have touched on about our own situation, none of the plants has been built. We need to demonstrate and become familiar with the technology. It is available and is used for enhanced oil recovery but it is not as developed. My colleague, Dr. Glynn, has done some work on this and I will ask him to come in on this in a moment. There is an area that is very difficult to mitigate. We do not have systems that are 100% renewable electricity either, so when we look at decarbonising electricity, there is the element that can be delivered from the variable renewable electricity - hydro, natural gas with CCS, biomass, nuclear, biomass with CCS - and in each of those latter sources there are elements that are liked and disliked. The latest analysis from the IPCC and the International Energy Agency, IEA, shows that achieving the 1.5°C target cannot be done without carbon capture and storage.