We are honoured to have Minister Pat Rabbitte
to deliver the UCD Engineering Graduates Annual Spring Lecture on April 3rd
next in the Clinton Auditorium Belfield at 7pm on the topic "Meeting
Ireland's Energy Challenge".
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| Minister Pat Rabbitte |
Last year we had Regina Finn for this lecture
then Chief Executive of the Water Regulation Authority for England and Wales
and that was another highly timely and eventful gathering as will be this
year's Lecture on a timely and critically important economic and social topic.
Pat Rabbitte TD is the Minister for
Communications, Energy and Natural Resources which is a huge Government
portfolio covering Energy, Telecommunications, Broadcasting, Postal Service and
Oil/Gas Exploration. He is responsible for a huge number of semi-state bodies
including ESB, EirGrid, Bord Gais, RTE, TG4, Broadcasting Authority of Ireland,
National Oil Reserves Agency (NORA), An Post, Bord na Mona and Sustainable
Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI).
He is a TD for Dublin South West since 1989
and was leader of the Labour Party from 2002 to 2007. He was the Dail's longest
serving member of the Public Accounts Committee. He was previously Minister of
State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment with responsibility
for Commerce, Science and Technology.
Energy policy traditionally concentrated on
'ensuring a secure, sustainable and competitive energy environment'. That is so but the current Government
have a higher ambition and that is to ensure that energy policy also supports inward
investment, growth and jobs as part of economic recovery.
It’s the same strong message we got last
Autumn from the Taoiseach when he came to address us on 'Manufacturing
Engineering and Job Creation' - where he said 'the Government's top priority
and a strong manufacturing sector is essential to growing our exports to
sustain and create jobs in innovative home grown business as well as foreign
companies who locate in Ireland'.
It’s reassuring to see that in this area of
Job Creation in Ireland there appears to be very strong 'joined up thinking'
among the Departments at Government level.
We expect the Minister will concentrate on
the 'big picture' policies that will inform the Energy Green Paper from
Government later this year and make reference to the current strategies for
onshore and offshore renewables. The Minister may also make some reference to
the implementation of the North South Interconnector, Grid Link and Grid West
projects which are at different stages of development.
Media commentators are firmly linking the
roll out of new grid projects with new onshore wind projects in the Midlands
and assuming that if the onshore wind export projects do not proceed that this
will obviate the need for the new grid development projects. Not so - as I'm
reliably informed that these projects are quite independent of each other. The
new EirGrid projects are still all required whether the export wind projects
proceed or not.
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| Onshore Wind Farm |
The vast majority of Engineers accept the
need for the new Grid Development projects as part of the Grid 25 Strategy
approved by Government. The vast majority of Engineers also support the ongoing
development of onshore and offshore wind as does the Government. There are a
small number who don't and they are often mischievously quoted by opposition
groups against wind farms and grid development as being representative of the
engineering profession when they are not.
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| Overhead Power Line |
These are primarily issues for the
development organisations and not for the Minister who sets Energy Policy and
an implementation framework in which the transmission projects are developed.
One such framework policy was the Government Policy Statement on the Strategic
Importance of Transmission and other Energy Infrastructure published in June
2012.
We greatly look forward to what the Minister
has to say at this critical juncture in our energy infrastructure development.
One thing is clear - we need ongoing energy infrastructure development to match
our ambition to regrow our economy, to encourage national and international
investment and to accelerate job creation.
Sigmar Gabriel has been the German Energy Minister for many years and has been publicly supportive of Al Gore and the German Energiewendie (transition to renewable energy) . Last week to told a shocked meeting of the German Solar energy business that they had totally underestimated the effects of the transition and it is on the verge of failure. He told them they do not understand the problems it has caused. The engineers who are against the wind pylons are independent and professional and their views are in line with international engineering and science. Renewable energy is dying a death in Europe as evidenced by the decisions of the British to withdraw from the energy export plan notwithstanding Pat Rabbittes enthusiasm. Pat Rabbitte himself has no engineering degree and he has never addressed the criticism levelled against his plands.
ReplyDeleteTranslation: Regrettably some engineers do not fall into the groupthink mentality required to push through this crazy energy policy. These engineers actually have the nerve to think for themselves and are quoted by groups who also dont adhere to groupthink.
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