Addressing Malta's energy needs

I thank Ian Vella, Enemalta's PRO (The Sunday Times, April 6), for taking the trouble to discuss how his organisation sees the options for supplying Malta's future electricity needs. Besides being in favour of cable-connection to the European grid, he makes two important points. The integrity and reliability of the transnational electricity system is still not technically and administratively 100 per cent; nor is Europe's gas supply from Russia.

These are exactly some of the reasons why I recently suggested (in these columns and in The Times) that our government, despite our insignificant size, should be putting forward a strong argument, in EU energy and global warming debates, that Europe should be aiming to achieve 100 per cent reliability of its transnational electricity grid, while planning for energy independence along French lines by going for a large expansion of emissions-free nuclear power.

It is interesting that the price of electricity in Italy is about twice that in France and, although electricity prices reflect levels of government taxation, the huge difference between French and Italian prices must be at least partly due to much cheaper French nuclear power-generated electricity compared with Italian electricity generated largely by burning oil and gas.

The importance of Malta's future electricity supply cannot be overstated - we not only need it for all electrical appliances, but also for potable water production.

If Enemalta doesn't believe that the European grid is going to be 100 per cent reliable within the near future, then its plans for self-sufficiency with a new gas-fired power station would seem inevitable. However, I cannot help reiterate that Europe needs to quickly re-evaluate the French and Swiss models of nuclear emissions-free electricity generation to try and gain energy self-sufficiency, tackle global warming, and have a totally dependable transnational grid. The EU needs to be more focussed on new and potentially dangerous realities.

When not asleep, Mr Fsadni and Prof. Mallia (The Sunday Times, April 6) appear to inhabit 'Cloud 9', because I've always referred to nuclear electricity generation on the European mainland, and not on offshore islands like Malta.

Furthermore, their comments on the local poor financial incentives for the private citizen to invest in expensive solar electricity-generating panels, and on our general ignorance of/lack of compliance with decades-old European regulations for insulation of double-skinned (not single air-brick!) external walls, roofs and ground floors, is only repeating what I had previously pointed out.

My recollection is that the Institute of Energy Technology was previously a joint Maltese-Austrian solar energy study institute established some 30 years ago, and I'm not aware that in the meantime it has been responsible for the development and large-scale manufacture and marketing of solar energy capturing devices - to state that one of its recent conferences concluded that Malta is ideally placed to make use of solar energy is not exactly an earth-shaking scientific breakthrough.