Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I very much appreciate the opportunity to consider and think about controversial things or look at different options, particularly when it comes to meeting the energy challenge we have before us, which is to remove ourselves from our dependence on imported fossil fuels and create a sustainable, secure and competitive energy supply for our people.

Having considered and looked at that question over many years now, I have always said that we should consider a whole variety of different options. Following on fairly quickly from that, however, is the fact that any independent analysis of the potential for the nuclear option being used in Ireland to generate electricity would show that it is not going to be one to which we will turn. The reality behind that is the very well-understood and relatively easy to explain physics and economic issues or concerns regarding the technology.

Most new nuclear power plants being built, or those just recently concluded or commissioned in the likes of Finland, France or elsewhere, come of a size of about 1.5 GW, which makes it incredibly expensive should we use the Irish grid. On a grid in Ireland, we are currently probably using approximately 5 GW. We always have to have back-up power to complement the risk. Nuclear power plants have to be turned off on a very regular basis for safety, maintenance or other reasons. We must have an equivalent amount of power available at all times should a nuclear power plant have to be switched off instantaneously. We must be running a spinning reserve of 1.5 GW of running power as well. In a system the size of Ireland, that makes it totally uneconomic.

In any case, as we have seen, the UK is equivalent to us and has 60 or 70 years' experience of building nuclear plants. We do not have any experience or any waste issue problems with it but it does. It has much experience and history and a similar modern economy to us. Not only would we have to pay for the 1.5 GW of additional spinning reserve, the cost of that plant is likely to be equivalent to what the UK is currently paying, which is a multiple of the alternative power supplies we have available to us. We have no expertise. We would end up having a waste and disposal problem that we do not currently have.

Yes, nuclear power generates low-carbon electricity, but it is not always as secure as some people think. It is interesting; I have met my French counterpart a lot in the last six months. The French hold the Presidency of the European Council at present. She tells me that they have a really tight situation in France because many of their nuclear plants are out of action. They are finding that they have a series of issues around some of the boilers or other technical aspects and they are really close to not having enough power, as are we, for different reasons. It is not a magic easy-fix solution, however. We have to be upfront and honest about that. It is incredibly expensive and brings waste and other issues that would be long-term expensive. Had we built at Carnsore Point in the first place 40 years ago, we would be now decommissioning it. I also meet on a regular basis my Belgian counterpart, the Belgian energy minister, who is decommissioning some of its power plants because they have come to the end of their lifetime. It is phenomenally expensive, complex and difficult; it is not easy. We do not have that problem, and we have alternatives we can switch to.

Senator Keogan made the case for modular nuclear reactors, which would overcome some of those size difficulties. Again, however, when I talk to experts and others involved in the industry and elsewhere and ask whether they can show me these operating or ask where I could buy and put them, the answers are on a design table in a university or in some distant location where someone is thinking about how it might work. It is not deployable. In my sense, it will not be deployable for decades to come. I do not, therefore, believe it is a viable alternative solution.

We will be importing nuclear power; we already are. Some of the electrons that are being used to light this room at this moment are probably coming from the UK. I have not checked the grid system but it is likely that is imported from the UK. Some of those electrons will be generated by nuclear power. We are going to develop further interconnection, particularly with the UK in 2024 and France a couple of years later with the Celtic interconnector, which will be connecting a French nuclear system to an Irish renewable system. That can balance and work well for us, in my mind. That is a very economical way of distributing or selling our surplus, when we have it, and of importing power at times of shortfall. Therefore, there will be nuclear power in our system but it will not be generated here. The economics will work much better when it is done as part of an interconnected European system.

I will address some of the other elements of what is a very wide-ranging, which is appropriate, motion. We must consider so many different options and aspects in respect of energy. On the issue of gas exploration and further gas infrastructure into Ireland, in Ireland's case, I believe we have gone out more than 150 times. It is very expensive and costs up to €100 million per time to fund the drilling wells in a very harsh environment. We have only found gas three times at Kinsale, Seven Heads and Corrib. We have never found oil in commercial quantities. All the likely sites, and they are diminishing in number, are in very deep, distant waters. It is highly speculative with no real proven track record. We just do not have a lot of oil and gas reserves. I do not believe it would give us any gas security to think that if we just keep on exploring, we might find something. It is highly unlikely and incredibly expensive. Moreover, if the world keeps on exploring for oil and gas in that way, we are going to completely blow the climate targets that are vital for us to maintain a stable, habitable planet for our people. I do not believe oil or gas exploration have a future in Irish energy. I think it was absolutely appropriate for the previous Government to stop oil and then for this Government to stop gas. That was not a contentious point of debate in the programme for Government negotiations because everyone knows that is not really where the investment needs to go or where our energy future lies.

Things have changed; everything has changed. The world has changed even since this time two years ago when we were looking at this issue because of the war in Ukraine. Even leading up to the war, the turning off of the gas tap by the Russian Government and Gazprom in advance of the war was what put those energy prices up a year ago, which in turn also put gas prices up, in particular, which then put up the price of electricity. Since the war, we have seen gas prices rise from anything between three to five times what they would have been a year and a half or two years ago. That is an incredible shock to the entire economic system and to all the bills everyone is paying. It has led to a complete review of what Europe, Ireland and every country is doing in terms of energy security.

In that regard, Ireland is in different circumstances to the rest of Europe. One quarter of the gas we use comes from Corrib and three quarters comes from the UK and Norway. The vast majority of that gas interconnection comes directly from the Norwegian or North Sea fields into the UK system and into Ireland. There is a relatively thin gas pipeline from the UK into the Continent, so even if the demand for gas in Germany, Belgium and Holland increases, which it will because they switched away from Russian gas, we are still in a relatively secure place. We do not rely on Russian gas, which typically accounts for only 2% or 3% of needs historically. That Norwegian-UK gas is always going to be there for the UK-Ireland system because it does not have an easy alternative route back into the continental market.Many countries in Europe, particularly those who are looking at switching away from Russian gas, are looking at LNG. They are considering those options in doing contracts. This is understandable, because they have to switch away from Russian gas.

We are in a different position. There are planning applications in for the use of LNG in the likes of the Shannon Estuary. Everyone will know about this. I do not need to recite the history of Government commentary on that, but I would like to make a couple of points on it. First, if we were to introduce LNG, while at the same time introducing demand for the gas that it would it bring in, which is needed to make it an economically viable project, that too would burst our climate limits. This is because that huge level of demand emissions would come probably from north American or Canadian gas. It more likely could come from Qatar or from the west. It would be burnt here and all the emissions that would be accounted with it would send us over the limit.

There is also the question that we must consider of the best, most secure options for us. It is likely to be either Cork Harbour or the Shannon Estuary, because they are the two deep water ports that could cater for ships that are carrying any such material. It is interesting to look at what is happening and at the energy investment options that are being considered. In Shannon, the ESB, which has a long, proud and skilled record in energy delivery in this country, wants to go to hydrogen. It wants to connect to power generation at the Moneypoint site. This is because it sees the conversion of our offshore renewable capability into a storable energy source, such as hydrogen. This is where all of the investment, attention, development and interest is going in energy markets.

We have a comparative competitive advantage, particularly in the west of Ireland because we have that wind. We could convert that to hydrogen and use it in a back-up system. That grid connection into Moneypoint is either running on wind or, when wind is not blowing, it is running on stored hydrogen which backs it up. That would be a compelling, sensible, deliverable, achievable, secure, low-carbon, indigenous energy system.

The question we are asking, which we have to ask in our energy security review which we are doing at the moment, is the fundamental question as to whether Shannon Estuary will go to green hydrogen or if it will go to fossil fuels? The Shannon area task force should have the same question on its table in the same timeframes. It will have to consider this by the end of the autumn. It should ask the same question and listen to all the different views. Every time I go out of the country and meet people who have real experience in this, I ask them what they think we should do; should we go LNG, or should we go hydrogen. The vast majority of experts to whom I have spoken have said that in Ireland’s case, there will be a reliable gas supply for the next ten years and it should therefore go hydrogen. In ten years’ time, that is where the investment will be.

We will look at all the options and consider all the alternatives and not rule anything out. However, when I ask independent outside experts, that is what I hear a lot. The same is to be said for Cork. Cork has the same capability potential for offshore wind to connect to a deep-water harbour where it could be converted to hydrogen or ammonia. What is happening there? There are energy people, who are in the business and who are investing, such as those at the Whitegate oil refinery. They are very interested. When I meet them, they are talking about and are interested in hydrogen. They are asking if it could be the next investment. There are other indigenous companies that are already down there and are working with the power plants and with the big energy users. For example, in Cork, there is the biopharma and in Shannon there is the aluminium and smelting. When they come to me, they say that they are interested in hydrogen. This is because that is where they see the investment and new technology going. I am just sharing what I see of what is happening and what is going to come. We will have that hydrogen strategy by the end of the year. That will help us.

I wish I had the time to go into the full question around our renewables and energy efficiency future, which I see as the alternative. It is a matter of balancing between the two factors of variable demands and variable supplies. This is the new industrial revolution that is taking place. Storage will be a key component in this, in electric batteries, in hydrogen and in other interconnection and storage and transportation systems.

I read Senator McDowell regularly in The Irish Times. He says that this renewable energy efficiency revolution is a cod, that we are being fooled, that this is terrible and that the Association of Energy Engineers, AEE, thinks something different. It may well do. However, yesterday Europe presented its repower policy in response to the need to move away from Russian gas. It is saying that we must fast forward to a green transition. That is the headline of its press release. It is all about efficiency. It is all about promoting renewables. Yes, it says that for certain countries it is best to look at LNG. However, this is the European economic, energy and climate strategy. It is not doing it because of any ideology. It is doing it because this is the more secure way. This is where the jobs will come. This is where Europe has scale, capability and expertise.

Ireland is the same. We have this. Our sea area is seven times the size of our land area. We are good at renewable energy.We are good at integrating it. We are good at efficiency.We have to manage demand. We have not approved a new data centre in almost two years, because we realised that we have to be careful. We have to make sure that they are part of the climate solution and that they are not just operating separate to the limits that we have to live within. This is where the energy investment is going. This is where we have expertise and capability. While I appreciate the motion and I understand the sentiments behind it, I think the renewable, efficient, interconnected, storage and green hydrogen future is the one for us.