Future electricity requirements

In her column on securing Malta's future electricity requirements (The Sunday Times, March 2), Anne Zammit quotes a conference at the Institute of Energy Technology in Marsaxlokk which hailed Malta as the best location for solar radiation in the Mediterranean. Is this all the achievement the institute has to show to justify its 30-year existence? Perhaps Ms Zammit would enlighten us as to what the institute has cost to date, in terms of overheads and consultancies.

Ms Zammit quite rightly points out that we currently have no financial incentives to invest in expensive photovoltaic panels, and one therefore wonders what is behind the huge expenditure (€630,000) she mentions at Arka Respite Centre in Gozo, on these items, when interest on such a sum of money would have bought quite a lot of electricity every year. Unless these expensive solar electricity generators are free of VAT and import duty, and until the electricity they transfer to the national grid is reimbursed at the same unit price as Enemalta charges us, they are most unlikely to be taken up in a big way by households. They might be installed on public buildings, channelling more expensive contract money from taxpayer to friendly contractor/importer.

Ms Zammit seems to make a lot of the Malta Resources Authority's claims that it has been comparing two types of software for heating and cooling calculations to improve the energy efficiency of buildings. This is all very well, but perhaps the authority should also be looking into why we still do not have building regulations on insulation of ground floors, external walls and roofs. They have been in force in European countries for over 30 years. Some Maltese builders have even gotten away with single skin external walls - how's that for buildings' energy efficiency? Proposals to install wind farms on ridges around Mellieha or on Hurd's Bank should be favourably considered, ideally in partnership with the private sector, to reduce the financial investment burden on the taxpayer.

Commenting on the Government's plans to cable connect to the European electricity grid, Ms Zammit tries to knock this by suggesting unreliability and insecurity of supply. I lived in southern England for 24 years. The electricity supply there is connected by cable to French nuclear power, and we never experienced the power cuts we still have in 21st century Malta.

Our plans for cable connection to the European grid should go hand-in-hand with our government making a strong case for Brussels to look more closely at the French and Swiss models; the former generate 80 per cent and the latter 40 per cent of their electricity from nuclear. Although we're small, we should make an effort to push Brussels to realise than when oil, gas and coal run out, renewable energy will no way provide Europe with all its electricity requirements.

Only nuclear can deliver that, and only nuclear delivers massive power supplies for practically zero carbon emissions. Over the past 30 years, the French have acquired nuclear power generation supremacy, including unique expertise in reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. Their nuclear expertise is for sale via Areva SA, and presently oil and gas-rich north African and Middle Eastern/Gulf states are buying it. The latter are smart enough not to invest solely in information and communications technology 'smart cities', but also in the main emissions-free power generator of the future - nuclear.