Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 9 October 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action

Hydraulic Fracturing Exploration: Discussion

Photo of David CullinaneDavid Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have no problem with that. I welcome all our witnesses. As a starting point we must reduce our emissions and reach our targets under the international agreements we have. We must keep the lights on, as somebody mentioned, but this must be done in a fair and just way. As the debate evolves, we will have clashes such as this involving a project that local people might see as important to the economic sustainability of an area versus national policy on climate action. We had a very good discussion earlier in the audiovisual room that was attended by some members of the local community and local Members.

When we look at projects like this we must consider their viability and whether they are viable to begin with in the context of how policy has evolved and is still evolving. The views of people in local communities are clearly important as well. I found the presentation and written submission from Professor McMullin very helpful. He spoke about the general case for natural gas as a transitional lower intensity fossil fuel, which has already been shown as very weak. He states that the specific case of LNG is undermined by two further critical factors. The first is that liquefied transport is itself an energy intensive process, which reduces the net energy yield. The second factor is that it is widely understood that the primary source of LNG for importation into Ireland is likely to be gas extracted by way of hydraulic fracturing, and there are strong indications that such extraction is significantly more vulnerable to methane release as opposed to conventional extraction.

This project first appeared on the scene in 2006 as a concept and planning was sought in 2008. We have banned fracking in this State since that time for very obvious and justified reasons. Given what Professor McMullin indicated in his written statement and what was said in the presentation, is the project viable?

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