Greens Shut Down LNG In Kerry but Fracked Gas Still Flows from UK
Huge anger has been expressed in Kerry about An Bord Pleanála’s refusal to grant permission to the construction of a €650 million liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on Shannon estuary near Ballylongford, Co Kerry.
The Bord’s reasons for refusal were, generally, that the terminal goes against current government policy, and, specifically, that it would open Ireland up to importing fracked LNG sourced from the United States.
Eamon Ryan of the Green Party bragged “any objective assessment of our time in office would conclude that we have been the front wheel of this coalition.”
Current government policy on energy is thus monopolized by Ryan and the Greens with Fianna Fail and Fine Gael in the back seats.
Ryan’s and the Green’s policy on energy is to irrationally sabotage any fossil fuel production and consumption in Ireland. They believe that Ireland can be self-sufficient with renewable energy alone, however, the consequences of their policy will conclude with ever greater Irish dependence on the United Kingdom’s natural gas system.
Source: Our World In Data
There is no evidence to think Ireland will somehow not need significant sources of natural gas now and in the future. Natural gas consumption is at its peak level. The reduction in coal consumption and increase in wind consumption will only further increase demand for natural gas.
Ireland previously sourced the overwhelming majority of its natural gas from its own offshore wells but, due to government neglect and similar Green sabotage, expansion of Ireland’s offshore natural gas sector had been halted.
With the last bits of Irish supply running dry, Ireland is fast approaching a situation where it will be totally reliant on the UK’s Moffat interconnector pipeline for all its natural gas needs.
The most necessary input of Ireland’s energy system is now totally in control of a foreign government. When more shortages occur, like they have been occurring all throughout the last 2 years, the UK will no doubt prioritize its own voting constituents over those of Ireland. The Irish have no democratic mechanism to change this.
Ryan even acknowledged Ireland’s reliance on the UK in his recent signings of Memorandums of Understanding with the UK. The headlines were that the UK and Ireland would cooperate on energy and possibly “proportionally” share the burden of reductions in the event of a disruption.
It begs the question of: how exactly is “proportionality” defined? Vague definitions could actually be very misleading for real-time energy needs of Ireland. Furthermore, the UK’s statement on the memorandums stipulated “the Participants acknowledge that this MoU is not an international agreement, does not create any legally binding obligations.”
There is flat out no legal obligation or means of restitution for Ireland. The UK has complete control over Irish natural gas supplies.
The cherry on top of all this is that Ryan and his Greens didn’t even accomplish their stated goal of stopping fracked US LNG from entering Ireland. The UK has three LNG terminals which have been drastically increasing US LNG imports with the backdrop of the war in Ukraine.
“US imports to the UK more than tripled in 2022 compared with 2021”, according to the UK’s Department of Energy Security & Net Zero. UK Prime Minister Sunak and US President Biden formally committed to more than doubling UK imports of US LNG as well.
About 67 percent of US natural gas production is from fracking which means a similar share of UK imports of US LNG will be from fracking. This LNG will be regasified and sent through the UK’s national transmission system which will then make its way to the Moffat interconnector and finally to Ireland.
In a baffling contradiction, Ryan advocates banning Ireland from directly importing fracked US LNG yet explicitly acknowledges and endorses, in his memorandums, that fracked US LNG will be imported indirectly to Ireland just through the UK.
This is bananas. Ireland can’t even be comforted by the moral high ground when it inevitably sits in the dark and cold due to energy shortages and higher prices caused by Ryan and the Greens.
All of Europe experienced a severe energy crisis over the last few years due to the drastic reduction in Russian natural gas imports. If not for the US 3x-4xing its exports to Europe, the continent would have collapsed.
Fine Gael MEP Sean Kelly said, “this decision goes against the direction of EU policy, at a time when huge efforts are being made in Europe to boost our energy independence and resilience.”
Europe will expand and build new LNG terminals which will increase its LNG import capacity by one-third. Even the poster child of the green agenda (or failure of it) Germany is building a new LNG import terminal. Ireland is both on the wrong side of European energy strategy and the cold hard facts of reality. “Irish Academy of Engineering Energy & Climate Action Committee Chair Don Moore said he believes Ireland is adopting a high-risk strategy”, Newstalk reported, which “expose Ireland in the future to power cuts [and] power blackouts.”
Ireland should immediately change An Bord Pleanála’s decision on the Kerry terminal. It’s an egregious action that puts Ireland at increased energy supply risk, loss of democratic control to a foreign power, and reduces jobs and economic activity that would have been produced by the terminal.
This should be a lesson as well to stop humoring extremist Greens that either don’t understand math or worse.
Ireland could go even further in increasing its energy security by opening back up its offshore exploration and drilling. In similar fashion, the failure to do so just increases pressure on the UK to do it. Sunak recently declared the UK will “max out” its offshore exploration and drilling partly due to Ireland demanding more of its supplies.
Ireland could secure supply, lower prices, create jobs, and even export to its European neighbors in desperate need of new sources of energy. Instead, as it stands, Ireland has less control of its energy security and is at the whim of the UK.
Originally published on Gript on 18/09/2024:
https://gript.ie/greens-shut-down-lng-in-kerry-but-fracked-gas-still-flows-from-uk/