Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 28 September 2021
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action
Energy Charter Treaty, Energy Security, Liquefied Natural Gas and Data Centres: Discussion
Dr. James Carton:
I have a small comment on that in that our energy security does not become more guaranteed by putting in an LNG import terminal. As to the time and taxpayer' money needed to build that, we will ultimately be decommissioning it to achieve our alignment and decarbonisation targets under the Paris Agreement. Quite literally, energy spent elsewhere is better. It is a complex situation but we have discussed much of the situation on the need for data centres, the controls relating to the data centre build-out and then the opening up of opportunities for data centres to decarbonise. These are the key aspects we should think about.