Mr. Frank Daly:

I thank the Deputy for his questions. Actually, I meant to jump in on Deputy Bruton's question about the maturity of electrolysis technology. It is very immature. There are some manufacturers of electrolysers around Europe, in Germany in particular. Siemens and ThyssenKrupp are two that I can think of but I am sure Dr. Carton has many other examples. In terms of maturity, the efficiencies are in excess of 70% so they are well bedded in, in terms of the technology.

Regarding getting hydrogen from here to Germany, the latter is opening up discussions with countries all over the world. When the hydrogen strategy was released in 2020, countries around the world stumbled over each other to try to position themselves to supply hydrogen into Germany, including places as far afield as Chile and Australia. We believe that if Chile and Australia can deliver it at the right price, surely we can better that. They way they are doing it is by shipping it as ammonia. It is a very simple way of shipping and is being done already. Green hydrogen is converted to green ammonia but I am sure Dr. Carton has some other ideas as well. There are cases where hydrogen has been liquified. A shipment between Australia and Japan of liquified hydrogen was made quite recently. The easiest way of handling hydrogen is in the form of ammonia. It is not a challenge to shipping to companies and is something they are well used to. They deliver LNG and oil around the world so this is just a different product. Converting a tanker from LNG to ammonia is minimal in terms of refurbishment or retrofit.

The other issue to bear in mind is the announcement at the weekend in Germany about energy security, alongside the announcement of €100 billion for defence. Germany is going to fast-track two LNG plants which will be hydrogen-friendly and hydrogen-ready. If Germany is looking for deliveries of hydrogen into its system, we can deliver them straight to its LNG plants. In essence, getting it from here to there is not much of a challenge. It can be done. I am sure Dr. Carton will be able to add more on that question.