Parliamentary (non-)answers

The Times (October 8) carried a number of replies to questions in Parliament made by opposition members. Some of the answers call for comment.

An energy policy "based on EU requirements" was said to be "in an advanced stage". What of? An advanced stage of decay, irrelevance or of pickling in vinegar? The country has long had need of an energy policy. We have been humming and hawing for some eight years, with endless drafts from the various groups that have been vested with the task from time to time. The last-heard-of-draft has been with the Malta Resources Authority (MRA) for these last two years.

The MRA was also said to be "in the process of considering the production and use of bio-gas", again in connection with EC directive 2003/30/EC dealing with bio-fuels, which we are "bringing into force by the end of the year". Any impression that we are in a position to do anything about bio-gas production by that time is pure cuckoo. The technology - essentially the fermentation of certain solid and liquid wastes under anaerobic conditions - is well developed but we are not well prepared to make use of it. The only bio-fuel we are actually producing and using is the bio-diesel from Edible Oil of Marsa.

According to Minister Ninu Zammit "solar energy is still in its elementary stages" - no doubt a view based on a profound understanding of the subject. But the minister has hopes "for a breakthrough in its energy conversion rate, investment and affordability". Unfortunately, he does not seem to be aware that "investors" like Shell and BP as well as a host of smaller concerns in Europe, the US and Japan have major photo-voltaic (PV) production facilities; and they are not selling their "elementary" technology to little children, either. Production costs are still high and decreasing rather slowly; conversion efficiency for the best products is 18-20 per cent - slightly better than that of ministerial BMWs running on our roads! But local PV installations face at least two further obstacles - a Malta Environment and Planning Authority anathema of being "unaesthetic" and a return of a mere 2c from Enemalta for every unit given to the mains.

But surely the statement on wind farms as "not pleasing aesthetically and [producing] a lot of noise" must take the biscuit. I was struck by the resemblance of wind farms to the House of Representatives where there are a number of unaesthetic and noisy members on both sides; but that apart, can Minister Zammit give us some idea of how many winds farms he has seen and heard, apart from Ix-Xarolla? He might also suggest how we are going to reach his proclaimed target of five per cent of electricity from renewable sources by 2010 while waiting for that "breakthrough" and for wind generators to achieve an elegant silence.

Minister Austin Gatt was his usual uninformative self when answering a PQ about pollution from our power stations. There is no record that Enemalta has purchased any heavy fuel oil (HFO) for Marsa and Delimara steam turbines which meets EU standards for SO2 (sulphur dioxide ) emissions. And Delimara, unlike Marsa, has no soot precipitators; so we are probably transgressing there too. But then, we can also inform Brussels of our transgressions. That is a major change in the situation.