Mr. Patrick Swords:

There has been a lot of discussion and it is scaremongering to suggest that lights will go out. We have a single pipeline going up to the south west of Scotland and it is undesirable that we have that. We have a fully functional gas terminal at Corrib and were we obliged to lay the pipeline in a hurry, we could drop it along the beach in about four to six weeks. It is only a distance of 9 km and laying rates of pipelines on ground often can exceed 1 km per day. We have a flexible connection of approximately that length, which must be connected at the wellhead. This has not been done to prevent it from corroding. They are waiting until the entire project, which is ten years out of date, is completed. In reality, we could switch over to the Corrib field and keep everything going. We have alternatives and there is no rush. Even were that pipeline to western Europe through Scotland to go bang, we still would have other alternatives.

The other issue when it comes to wind is that many things can be done. Man went to the moon and back in 1969 and 1970. However, it is a question of economics and sense, as no one has been back there since. The question is whether it is sensible, not because it looks good or appears nice. When it comes to wind, in simple terms one must consider what it is, namely, kinetic energy and that is half the mass multiplied by the velocity squared. As for the mass, there are 30 km of air above me but that does not weigh very much and is very poor. The velocity squared pertains to the velocity of the wind, which only has a velocity of 4 m/s to 6 m/s, which is only 14 km/h to 15 km/h on average in the midlands. Consequently, the amount of energy one gets is very low, highly distributed and very erratic. Moreover, there is no way this will change and therefore one must build more and bigger wind turbines, as one must catch more air. If one wants more energy, one must catch more air and therefore one needs a bigger project.

Another aspect concerns the power that comes from a wind turbine. While it actually is turning and appears as though it is turning, the power is fluctuating all the time because it is related to the velocity cubed. If the velocity is halved, the power falls by one over two cubed, which is eight. In other words, if the wind speed halves, one gets 12% of the power even though it actually is turning around. This leads to the fact that someone must balance all this and our power stations are operating like cars stuck in traffic, that is, inefficiently. In fact, we are only getting approximately half of the savings claimed and this was known before this programme was started because EirGrid drew up the report on it. Even though a figure was reached of having 50% of our electricity being generated by wind, the fuel saving achieved was less than half that. Moreover, at that point the grid was being destabilised and tripped and we were dumping wind because the grid was being destabilised. We must go back and assess all these things. We must work out the benefit and there is no point in creating huge grids all over the countryside, connecting this, that and the other at a massive cost that does not work out on the basis of cost benefits but which merely really annoys people because of the visual and other intrusions on their society.