Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State. He and I soldiered together on the Joint Committee on Climate Change and Energy Security for some time. The committee still has not made any progress with this recalcitrant Government which refuses to accept the two legislative measures the Minister of State and I struggled hard to draft. Perhaps he will outline our current position with regard to climate change.

I note with interest and welcome the memorandum of understanding with the Renault-Nissan alliance on the provision of electric vehicles. A crucial part of that is battery exchange, which the Minister of State did not mention. He should attach a condition to this - if Europe will not do it, Ireland can - that there must be a conventional type of battery exchange. This would mean a person with an electric car could pull into a service station and have the car battery removed and replaced by another in less time than it would take to fill a car with petrol or diesel. We have seen this a million times when various conventions come into use for video, stereo and so forth, so let us get this right from the start. People would rent, not own, the battery. They would rent a full battery which they would exchange for another full one. Much work has been done on that in Israel, in particular, which is the most advanced country in the world on this issue. Without that, the purpose will be defeated.

It is very good to have fast chargers and so forth but what if a person wishes to drive to Cork and back but the range of their electric vehicle is approximately 350 km? That is the outer limit of what one can do so one must have the security of being able to exchange batteries. It is only a matter of a Government or EU decision to ensure all batteries are conventional. The other huge advantage of the electric car is that if we reach the target set by the Government, it would be a huge storage area. It would allow cars and batteries to be recharged during the off-peak hours, thereby building up a huge level of storage. That is the big issue.

The Irish Sea and the east coast are as attractive as other areas for wind energy. The biggest offshore wind farm in Europe is in the Irish Sea. Certainly, when it was established it was one of the biggest. There is great potential in that area. There is also huge tidal energy on the east coast to be harnessed, but it is not being harnessed at present. There is enriched renewable energy available off the north-west coast of Ireland. The average height of waves off the coasts of Donegal and Mayo is 2.5 m throughout the year. It is incredible. No other place in Europe can match that. The waves are there all the time and constitute a significant energy resource. We must bring that ashore. I will refer shortly to the issue of grid connection, which is not available.

One of the problems with wind energy has not been mentioned by the Minister of State. It should be made clear to people that one cannot run the entire system on wind energy. It does not have the required stability. It is not possible to go far beyond 50%, with 60% being the absolute limit. That is owing to the cycle of wind energy, and it should be explained to people. The Minister of State spoke about the research and said there is potential to secure 4,500 MW from wind and 1,500 MW from tidal energy. That is a total of 6,000 MW, which is considerably higher than our peak demand of approximately 5,000 MW.

That raises the issue of exporting energy. There is a great deal of confusion about this and it would be worthwhile if someone outlined the facts. Many people think that we can create excess energy and that there will be a ready market for it through our interconnectors, assuming the local politicians allow them to come ashore and across certain counties. That is not the case. People are currently trying to sell energy but they cannot sell it. There are also people in this country who are driving wind energy into the ground as we speak. Wind farms in this country are producing renewable energy which is being driven into the ground because they cannot get grid connections. The reason they cannot get grid connections is the ridiculous system of queuing to get attached to the grid. It is like years ago when people queued to buy a house. Some have got right of access to the grid but have no intention of signing up to it. Instead, they intend to sell their place in the queue to those who wish to connect to the grid which in turn drives up costs. This issue should be tackled quickly.

The Spirit of Ireland proposals need to be examined carefully. There would be no problems with the wind generated electricity aspect to them and there is no reason why they cannot be started now. However, regarding the proposal for hydropower storage reservoirs in valleys on the west coast, as soon as we start pumping seawater into drowned valleys in Donegal no one ever thought about before they will suddenly become a source of objection. Storage capacity is inefficient. If it takes 100 units of energy to pump the water up the hill, one would be lucky to get 74 units return when it goes down the hill. I accept it is better than nothing but is it the most efficient way to spend €2 billion? Electric car storage might be more efficient.

We also have not done enough investigation of other forms of storage. While the Spirit of Ireland proposals for alternative generation are fine, its proposals for storage are somewhat outdated. A reason why it is attractive and people are enthusiastic about them is because they are easily understood. That does not mean they are the most efficient, however.

There are also aspects of photovoltaic energy production which we have not examined. Again, this energy means is about available light, not sun, and it has a huge capacity.

Local authorities should be given much more involvement in alternative energy production. Last year I met with the then Mayo county manager on the work his local authority did in this area. It should be the role model of good practice for every other local authority. A wind farm was established at the old peat-burning station at Bellacorrick in north Mayo and the local authority intended to extend it to create up to 500 MW of energy. That comes in at 10% of peak demand from one site. The local authority was examining other sources such as wave and tidal. Anyone who has tried to take a boat through the Achill Sound when the tide is running knows it will go like a bullet. The local authority only needed grid connections, interconnections and pylons across the country to feed this electricity into the national system.

Members recently had a presentation from Bord Gáis and Calor Gas on a new efficient boiler system for houses, which would particularly suit those in rural areas, which apart from heating the house and water also generates 1 kW of electricity for the home. In north Dublin, which is the back of beyonds as far as this part of the world is concerned, where we have regular power cuts, the security of a 1 kW flow to maintain a back-up supply would be very beneficial. These boilers are microgeneration at a cell level. They save by not having to be connected to the grid and are highly efficient. With a payback of €700 per year from the generation of 1 kW of electricity and at a cost of €6,000 per boiler, installing one should pay itself back in nine years. No other renewable energy source repays microgeneration at household level so quickly. One would be lucky to get payback in 20 years from installing a wind generator in one's back garden.

Private investors in wind farms need to have it explained to them that the most that can be put on the grid at any one time is 60% of demand. It becomes unstable to go beyond 60%. That translates as 3,000 MW which is the most which can be put on the grid. To cover peaks and troughs, electricity production must be able to reach 4,500 MW because the wind does not blow all the time. Unless Spirit of Ireland can export any over produced, its business plan is in difficulty.

It must also be remembered every other country is moving in the same direction in energy production and believes they can connect up to an infinite market in Europe. It is not an infinite market. While it is a large market, it is also controlled by three large operators. EDF, Électricité de France, owns the pylon network from Moscow to Madrid. I have seen how it ran pylons up and down the most beautiful parts of the Pyrenees and no one objected. It is amazing the power this company holds and which is also buying into the UK and the Irish market. It and Veolia Environment are the two new European empires enjoying more control than even the banks. They heat our houses and dispose of our waste and soon will be in charge of all utilities.

I have tried to cover several aspects of this debate and like a jack of all trades I have not done enough on one particular theme. Will the Department provide a business plan for internal investment in wind energy? Will the Department recognise that whereas we were leading the field of wave energy five years ago, we have been overtaken by Scotland? Scotland already has a wave energy production unit connected to the grid while our project has not yet developed a full-scale model.

It is a crime Corrib gas has not been landed in this country. We are talking about the need to be independent of other countries for energy production. There is gas in the Corrib field and yet the Government has flunked it. It needs to take a clear stand that there is a demand for it in the country and that there is local support for it in north Mayo. While I accept the Minister of State's party was overly enthusiastic in the wrong direction in this matter before, I hope now it is in Government it has a clearer perspective. The gas has to be landed. I accept my e-mail will be clogged with vitriol tomorrow morning but the majority of people in north Mayo support the landing of Corrib gas. The Government, however, has sat on its hands on this. Two or three Ministers, including the two Éamons although one of them has moved onto another place, were afraid to take action. Let us get this ashore, which means we must get the foreshore legislation sorted out.

I was promised by three of four people holding ministerial office in that Department that officials were working hard on geothermal matters. A man in west Dublin has a line of investors. He went down 3 km and found hot water. He can create electricity and district heating in an effective industry. All he needs is legislation, similar to the mineral legislation, to give him the right to take water from below land that may be owned by other people. It is a great regret that this has not been done. We are missing three items of legislation and some business plans.