Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)
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It is my pleasure to welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, to the House.

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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I, too, welcome the Minister of State.

Next September, An Bord Pleanála is due to make a decision on the planning application submitted by Shannon LNG Limited for a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal on the Tarbert-Ballylongford land bank. The company behind the proposed plant has stated that the Shannon LNG terminal could be built in 12 months, and could even be built to accommodate a gradual transition to green hydrogen production in the future, thus aid Ireland in reaching its climate targets as well as bolster our energy security. Indeed, a spokesperson for the Tánaiste said earlier this month that he is particularly keen to assess the proposed plant's capabilities with regard to green hydrogen production and that he believes there is real potential for this in the Shannon Estuary.The Minister, Deputy Ryan, also spoke in favour of green hydrogen when the House debated my motion on energy back in May. The question was asked whether Shannon Estuary would be used for green hydrogen and, if not, whether it would be used for green fossil fuels. What if it could do both? During the debate in May, when speaking about hydrogen, the Minister spoke about liquefied natural gas in the medium term and hydrogen in the long term. He said that is where the investment will be in ten years' time. What of those ten years, however? Are families to accept that energy prices will continue to climb while scientists and engineers work to make hydrogen economically viable and attractive to investors or should we take up an offer to increase the national supply of electricity with a new plant that could green itself over its lifetime?

Obviously, we await the decision of An Bord Pleanála and, in addition, the programme for Government explicitly states that the project does not have the support of the Government, which had it withdrawn from the EU list of projects of common interest last year. This month, the Taoiseach said that the concept of a terminal which could transition to hydrogen production was interesting but that, given the time it would take to construct the terminal, it would not solve the current energy crisis.

However, I am not sure that anyone is positing that such a terminal could be a total fix. Rather, it could be a useful measure to help in building up the country's energy security and lowering the cost of living. What kind of approach is it to refuse a partial solution or a step towards one in favour of waiting until a perfect one comes along and to fail to implement successive suggestions over the course of months and years and, when people point out that the problem persists, to respond with, "Oh well, it is very complicated. We cannot possibly fix it overnight. There is no silver bullet here."? There will never be a silver bullet for energy, housing, economic downturns or for viruses. We need to take what help we can get to make things better for the people on the ground.

There is a reason that climate activism is a priority solely for the first world. Basic needs must be met first, in the here and now, before people can have the luxury of engaging in it. I guarantee that, if we polled the people of Ireland and asked if they preferred slashed energy bills or meeting climate targets, we would see the truth of that statement. It might not be the fault of the Government that this energy crisis happened and that it did not see it coming but fault will lie with the Government if it fails to react to it. A hybrid LNG-hydrogen terminal at the Shannon Estuary might be just the reaction we need. I ask the Government to consider its position on the plan in this light. It would benefit us in the medium and long term.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I thank Senator Keogan for raising this important matter. The national energy security framework published in April 2022 provided a single overarching and initial response to address Ireland’s energy security needs in the context of the war in Ukraine. It co-ordinates work connected to energy security across the electricity, gas and oil sectors and sets out a whole-of-government response to the challenges posed to energy security and energy affordability.

As set out in this framework, my Department is carrying out a review of the energy security of Ireland’s electricity and gas networks. This review is focused on the period to 2030 in the context of net zero emissions by 2050. It is considering the risks to both natural gas and electricity supplies, and a range of potential measures including the need for additional capacity of indigenous renewable energy but also the need for the importation of energy such as liquefied natural gas, energy storage, fuel diversification and renewable gases such as hydrogen.

The underlying technical analysis is being updated to take into account the war in Ukraine. The completion of the review as set out in the national energy security framework is scheduled for delivery in the third quarter of this year. Following this, the results will be brought to Government. The Government policy statement on importing fracked gas was approved by Government and published in May 2021. This policy statement provides that, pending the outcome of this review, it would not be appropriate for the development of any LNG terminals in Ireland to be permitted or proceeded with. As of now, the review is ongoing and the results have yet to be submitted to Government.

Hydrogen can be produced through a number of processes powered by a wide range of sources including fossil fuels, nuclear energy, biomass and renewable energy.The energy source, the production process and the by-products influence how carbon intensive hydrogen is. Different colours are used to indicate how the hydrogen is produced, the energy sources used and the carbon intensity of the hydrogen. Green hydrogen is sustainably produced from renewable electricity and has a zero-carbon intensity, while other types of hydrogen produced from fossil fuels are not of a zero-carbon intensity and can be classified as either grey or blue hydrogen, depending on the technology used to produce them. For example, grey hydrogen is produced using natural gas and a reformer, while blue hydrogen is produced using natural gas, a reformer and carbon capture and storage. Hydrogen produced from LNG is not classified as green hydrogen.

Ireland’s policy is such that hydrogen ought to be produced and deployed in the Irish energy system in a way that is coherent with our decarbonisation goals, in particular to avoid any potential locking in of non-green or non-renewable hydrogen use that fails to align with Ireland’s target of achieving net zero by 2050. Ireland has significant offshore wind potential and the production of green hydrogen from variable renewable electricity could help Ireland fully utilise its renewable resources to decarbonise, reducing significant levels of curtailed renewables and improving energy security. Therefore, our priority is for green hydrogen sustainably produced from renewable sources.

I thank Senator Keogan again for raising the issue and look forward to hearing her views and those of any other Senators.

Sharon Keogan (Independent)
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I appreciate the Minister of State’s reply. We are not just waking up to the fact Ireland has significant offshore wind potential. We have always known this. The wind has been blowing there for donkey's years; it did not start just now. That we are talking about it only now is just not good enough. We are in a very serious energy crisis. This LNG proposal could help us, as a nation, get out of that crisis. We have the deepest water in Europe for cargo shipping, a floating storage and re-gasification unit that, as a ship, will have LNG storage capacity of up to eight days' demand for Ireland, something we need to take into account.

The planning is now bogged down with An Bord Pleanála. I understand that the issue of concern relating to the application for the people arose because some of that source gas was going to come from fracking in the United States. If the company gave a commitment that natural gas would be sourced from the Middle East, would that allay the concerns the Minister of State might have? People are at the pin of their collar putting petrol in their car and their energy costs are growing daily. We have to react to that and we need to do something. The buck stops with the Green Party.

Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I fully agree that we need to accelerate our deployment of renewable energy, and with the Ukraine war, suddenly there has been a new focus whereby other countries in Europe have said they need to accelerate theirs as well. The Council of the European Union sat down and decided we needed to bring in a new package, known as RePower EU, that will involve greater ambition on the level of renewables that can be deployed. Part of that plan will involve sourcing fossil fuel energy from countries other than Russia and to find other means to do that, and also to reduce the period in which it takes to obtain planning permission for renewable energy, to between one and two years. The Council wants EU countries to designate special areas as faster areas for renewable energy and we are going to take part in that. I am sorry it did not happen sooner. If I had been involved, it would have, as the Senator can imagine.

The Senator mentioned the possibility of reusing an LNG terminal for the export of hydrogen. There are two basic types of terminals, namely, import and export terminals. We are looking at developing an export terminal in the form of liquid ammonia, which could be used by other countries that might need it. Ammonia is more energy dense than hydrogen and presents a more feasible solution.

There is no silver bullet for energy, as the Senator noted. We need a combination rather than having all our eggs in one energy basket. We need the diversity, strength and resilience that comes from using multiple sources of energy in order that if one of them is unavailable or very expensive or if it fails for some reason related to the weather, we will have a back-up of these different systems. Combined with that, we need good grid connections interconnecting us with other countries. We are developing the Celtic interconnector to connect our grid to France, we have multiple connections to the UK and we are looking at other countries as well.