Mr. Matthew Collins:

I thank the Chair and members of the committee. It is a pleasure to be here. Ireland's energy policy seeks to strike a balance across three pillars to ensure a sustainable, secure and competitive energy system for Ireland. The key challenge for us is to ensure that Ireland's energy sector achieves a transition to a low emissions energy system which is reliable and secure at affordable cost. The proposed ban on exploration in Ireland would not reduce Ireland's greenhouse gas emissions. If the ban had been law, it would not have helped Ireland reach its 2020 emissions and renewable energy targets. It has been accepted that the proposed ban will not help Ireland reach its 2030 targets or its 2050 emissions reduction goal. Affordable energy is needed for businesses, which provide employment and create wealth, and for households, which need affordable energy and protection against energy poverty. The choices we make in energy policy affect our three goals. The lowest cost approach may not lower our emissions and may not help our security. Similarly, relying only on one or two renewable energies, like wind and solar which fluctuate significantly, may undermine our competitiveness and our security. Across the electricity generation, built environment and transport sectors, Ireland has a long-term commitment to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by at least 80% by 2050 compared with 1990 levels.

The 2015 White Paper on Energy, Ireland's Transition to a Low Carbon Energy Future, sets out a vision of a low-carbon energy system where emissions from the energy sector will be reduced by between 80% and 95% by 2050 compared with 1990 levels. The reduction will require a significant increase in the share of renewables in primary energy supply. Fossil fuels will continue to make a significant but progressively smaller contribution to Ireland's fuel mix. In this low CO2 emissions energy system scenario, the fossil fuels oil and gas will account for 26% to 51% of Ireland's primary energy supply in 2050. By banning exploration in Ireland's seas, we will be requiring Ireland to import all its oil and gas in the future. Both the International Energy Agency and the International Renewable Energy Agency recognise that around 70% of the global energy supply mix in 2050 will need to be low carbon and say the largest share of the emissions reduction potential up to 2050 relates to renewables and energy efficiency.

However, all low-carbon technologies, including nuclear and carbon capture and storage, play a role internationally.

The proposed ban would not encourage the use of renewable energy nor support improved energy efficiency, both of which are fundamental to reducing emissions cost-effectively. We have seen that countries, like Norway, Denmark, Portugal, with active petroleum exploration or production, can also have high shares of renewable energy.

Therefore, the International Energy Agency and the International Renewable Energy Agency acknowledge that fossil fuels will still be needed in 2050. Natural gas would continue to play an important role in the energy transition, first, to ensure system flexibility and inertia with more renewables in the power sector and, second, to substitute for fuels with higher carbon emissions for heating purposes and in transport. The use of oil would fall as it was replaced by less carbon-intensive sources, but its substitution is challenging in several sectors, such as aviation, marine transport and petrochemicals.

A proposed ban on Irish exploration fails to recognise that, even as Ireland transitions to a low-carbon energy system, we will still use oil and gas. Oil will most likely be used for aviation, marine and heavy goods transportation and petrochemicals in the longer term. In addition, gas will be used to produce cleaner electricity, first by replacing peat and coal and later in combination with carbon capture and storage.

UCC's MaREI’s energy policy and modelling team is the only research team nationally that has developed scenarios to explore long-term possible energy futures for Ireland, exploring the context of climate mitigation and energy security. MaREI's previous work informed the White Paper on Energy. It showed that the 80% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050 would still have significant levels of oil and gas in our energy mix. This was because some of the gas is used together with carbon capture and storage, CCS in electricity generation, and oil is gradually removed from Ireland’s energy use, apart from in aviation and maritime transport.

MaREI also looked at deeper emissions reduction scenarios for 2050, taking account of the Paris Agreement. These all implied very significant challenges to our energy system which will require further consideration. At a broad level, it suggests that onshore wind energy and natural gas dominate the generation mix to 2030, after which gas-CCS, bioenergy and bioenergy-CCS become prevalent. It is understood that MaREI can provide additional information to the committee if it would be of assistance.

It can also be seen in a range of low-carbon energy system scenarios between now and 2050. There is a small but significant role for fossil fuels, mainly natural gas and oil, used together with CCS. In that context, it simply does not make sense to ban exploration for Ireland's resources and make Ireland 100% dependent on imports for gas and oil needs in the future when we know that Ireland’s indigenous production at Corrib is going into decline.

It does not make sense to copy a policy from one country to another country without taking account of Ireland’s circumstances. As the committee members know, Ireland has low energy self-sufficiency, being energy import dependent, having an isolated island electricity grid and having the largest agricultural share of emissions in Europe. In contrast, France, with many grid connections to other EU countries, will rely on nuclear power for 50% of its electricity by 2025. Ireland has a more ambitious goal: to produce 55% of its electricity from renewable sources over the next decade. Almost 80% of New Zealand’s electricity comes from large-scale hydro and geothermal power. Similarly, almost 90% of Costa Rica’s electricity comes from large-scale hydro and geothermal power.

It has been accepted that the proposed ban on exploration for Ireland's natural resources does not reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. The exploration ban offers nothing to the renewables sector and it would not improve energy efficiency. The exploration ban will not increase Ireland’s energy security or keep our energy costs down.