There’s a cost to virtue-signalling, as Germany – once the mighty industrial powerhouse of Europe – has learned to its cost, after spiralling energy costs became a key factor in the once-unimaginable prospect of deindustrialisation.
Energiewende – the country’s rush to ditch fossil fuels while also phasing out nuclear energy – has brought about the kind of surging energy costs that prompted manufacturing giants such as BASF and Thyssenkrupp to seek to relocate operations, with one prominent business sector leader saying the emphasis on unreliable renewables meant Germany is at risk of going from a powerhouse to an “industrial museum”.
In contrast, manufacturing has been mostly resilient in recent times in one of Germany’s nearest neighbours, Poland, who rely heavily on coal for energy but also import gas and oil. Despite Covid lockdown woes and energy price spikes after the invasion of Ukraine, manufacturing activity has not contracted in Poland in the same way, nor is it undergoing the same existential crisis, as we’re seeing in the EU’s largest, but troubled, economy.
Now Poland has got some indisputably good news: unless you’re a climate change warrior that is. It has discovered one of Europe’s largest oil finds in a decade just off the coast in the Baltic Sea, and in addition to millions of tonnes of oil, there’s also a significant amount of gas. But many readers might be surprised to learn that the state has effectively ensured that, going forward, we will not licence such beneficial discoveries.
Euronews reports that preliminary figures suggest that “the broader concession area, spanning 593 square kilometres, is estimated to contain over 33 million tonnes of oil and condensate, as well as 27 billion cubic metres of gas.”
That would more than double Poland’s current estimated oil reserves, which stood at around 20.2 million tonnes in 2023, according to Polish public broadcaster TVP.
If confirmed, the discovery would rank as Poland’s largest conventional hydrocarbon deposit and among the biggest in Europe in the last 10 years, according to the Polish Press Agency.
Central European Petroleum, who found the deposit said it is a “historic moment” for the Polish energy sector, adding that this “is more than just a promising deposit — it is a joint opportunity to unlock the full geological and energy potential of the Baltic Sea.”
For the Polish authorities, the prospect of further finds is also a significant factor in concern about energy autonomy and security – something that’s also a growing concern in this country.
“The discovery of the Wolin East hydrocarbon deposit (…) could prove to be a breakthrough in the history of hydrocarbon exploration in Poland, especially in areas still insufficiently explored, such as the Polish Exclusive Economic Zone in the Baltic Sea,” said Krzysztof Galos, Poland’s Undersecretary of State and Chief National Geologist.
The find could play a key role in reducing Poland’s dependence on imported fossil fuels, particularly as the country looks to strengthen its energy autonomy, local media reported.
Energy autonomy and energy security are the current buzzwords here in Ireland too because we are so heavily dependent on imported energy. We had 78.5% energy import dependency in 2023, according to the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, with 80% of our energy is coming from fossil fuels.
Despite the emphasis on – and huge subsidy of – renewable energy, it seems unlikely that we have any hope of reaching our Climate Action Plan target to increase the share of electricity generated from renewable sources up to 80% in 2030. But we’re still holding up that target, even as it becomes increasingly evident that there are unresolved problems regarding storage and the insurmountable issue that there are times when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.
While we haven’t had much coal to rely on for decades, and we’ve foolishly closed down peat harvesting to please the EU – and even did so ahead of schedule – gas was discovered at Kinsale and Corrib, though negotiations to get maximum benefits for the country on the latter left a lot to be desired. Currently, some 80% of Ireland’s gas supply comes through the UK via a single pumping station.
Why does any of that matter? Because, at at a time when energy security is a hugely important issue – and is yet another worrying factor in the economic uncertainty we’re headed into involving tariffs, threats to our bumper corporation tax take, and other worries – we’ve adopted a wholly foolish position regarding the use of natural resources that might yet be discovered.
That’s not to say that we shouldn’t have concerns about pollution or energy provision or whether the planet is heating. Its that our responses should make sense.
IRELAND & ‘KEEP IT IN THE GROUND’
In fact, if we were in the happy position now being enjoyed by Poland and found millions of tons of oil and billions of cubic metres of gas, we most likely wouldn’t be celebrating. Au contraire. We’re committed, in fact, to leaving it in the ground.
This frankly insane state of affairs was first mooted in 2018 when the country was perhaps at peak madness,. and it was almost impossible for voices of reason to be heard on almost any issue.
A majority of TDs actually voted in favour of a bill, of rare stupidity, brought by the usual lunatics in People Before Profit which sought to ban oil and gas drilling in Irish waters today. The ‘Keep it in the Ground’ Bill, passed the second stage in 2019 and was then stalled until 2021 when then Minister Eamon Ryan ensured Cabinet support for the ban which would be included the Climate Bill that year.
Ryan made sure that the commitment was acted on immediately, saying his department would no longer accept new applications for exploration licences for natural gas or oil – and adding that neither would there be any future licensing rounds.
He wanted to “send a powerful message, within Ireland and internationally, that Ireland is moving away from fossil fuels towards a renewable future” – adding that “by keeping fossil fuels in the ground, we will incentivise the transition to renewable energy and put ourselves on a pathway to net-zero [carbon emissions] by 2050”.
Except that net zero is not going to happen by 2050. And the price of electricity is causing real harm – not just to older people and families left shivering in their homes, but also to business who are seeing huge bills cutting further into already thin margins. The cost of energy impacts pretty much everything, from production to transport to retail and services. The cost of living crisis is in danger of becoming the new normal, and slowly ratcheting up carbon taxes isn’t helping.
Cost is just one side of the coin, however. The fragility of our reliance on imported energy was captured in a headline in the Business Post: “The Irish economy is at risk of losing €64 billion if a pipeline that exports gas from UK is the target of “physical sabotage”, according to Gas Networks Ireland”.
And the truth, whether the luddites like it or not, is that Ireland is an anomaly in rushing to be the best greens in the world, in virtue-signalling at least. Only four other countries have passed a ‘Keep it in the ground’ measure. And we’ve banned peat harvesting while we import briquettes from Latvia – and bring wood chip across 7,500 miles from Brazil. The never-ending contradictions are ridiculous, especially given that the real polluters, such as China, are still powering their economies while burning coal and anything else they damn please.
BALLYROE
After Eamon Ryan hurried through the ban on exploration, he turned his attention to existing licences and in 2023 refused to grant Barryroe Offshore Energy’s application to continue oil and gas drilling operations off the West Cork coast. The Barryroe field is estimated to hold around 300 million barrels of recoverable oil.
Lansdowne Oil & Gas, a junior partner in the Barryroe project, last year told investors it was “extraordinary” that Ryan, had blocked the development, adding that “the long-delayed report on Ireland’s energy security has taken a blinkered approach, driven entirely by environmental dogma, and will ensure that Ireland’s energy insecurity will persist to 2030 and beyond and that the Irish consumer, already paying some of the highest electricity prices in Europe, will face additional cost burden”.
In April of this year, some Cork County Councillors urged the new Minister, Darragh O’Brien, to review and assess the application for the Barryroe field, emphasising that success in the exploration would reduce our reliance on imports.
Cllr Patrick Gerard Murphy said we have a ‘ready-made energy source’ off the coast of West Cork where the amount of work needed to be done is minimum, the Southern Star reported.
‘It can tap into the nearby Kinsale gas field and from an energy security point of view it would be remiss of us not to pursue it and give it a chance,’ he said.
‘We have 350m barrels of oil sitting there and the only reason nothing is happening was that the licence was taken away and it wasn’t financially viable for the company. It’s like the chicken and egg; if they don’t have the licence they can’t raise the finance.’
He said that the country will have to use fossil fuel for another 10 to 15 years at least, and it makes no sense to import it in from Russia and Ukraine.
‘Offshore wind energy is the way to go, but this is for while we are getting to that point.’
While many others were in strong agreement with Murphy, “there was not unanimous agreement in the chamber, with two Social Democrat councillors vocally disagreeing with that assessment of the situation,” the Southern Star report also noted.
The problem we have is that, as always in this country, that the loud, vocal tail is wagging the dog. And so we are in the absurd position, as Cllr Alan Coleman told the above meeting, that “we are happy to use fossil fuel as long as it’s not produced here” adding that the Barryroe field might “give us security for the next 30 years”.
Energy security, and the need to protect our economy and our people from soaring, volatile energy prices, is too important an issue to allow muddled Green thinking to dictate our future – or as I previously wrote, bowing to one climate target to rule us all, and in the darkness bind us.
Other countries, like Poland – and like the UK, now looking anew at nuclear – put their own needs first. So should we. The ban on exploration licenses should be lifted.