No dirty politics; truth is green

Last Thursday morning, I woke up in total darkness to the sound of bleeps and bleats. Not a quixotic nightmare but a power cut that had sent a number of appliances into a state of frenzy. It was 6 a.m. "Not again." I sighed, forgetting that, like the rest of Malta, I was making do with a power station on its last legs while the government is negotiating a controversial extension.

After squinting at my I-phone for any inkling as to what may have happened, I grumpily made my way down and up four flights of steps to fetch The Times to find a very enlightening Talking Point by Finance Minister Tonio Fenech about the BWSC contract called No Dirty Politics; The Truth Is Clean.

As I squinted at The Times in the very dull early morning light (it was raining) I was given to understand that the government was between Scylla and Charybdis. Until we are able to use gas in 2015 we have the choice of using heavy fuel oil or diesel. The former is a deadly pollutant and the latter would hike up our electricity bills by 30 per cent. Faced with this dilemma and a potential revolution akin to what is happening in Greece should the electricity bills increase further, the government compromised by opting for heavy fuel oil coupled with "the best technology to capture the waste it produces". It couldn't be clearer, could it?

Statements like this throw me into a state of paroxysmal exasperation for nowhere in this article did Minister Fenech allude to alternative sources of energy. So here we are basted by the sun and buffeted by high winds for most of the year and, yet, still unable to tap these free resources. I just cannot bear it. It is akin to having "water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink".

Occasionally there's some talk of a wind farm on Hurd's Bank and then it is obfuscated in all this sturm und drang caused by the nation-wide power cuts that we have had this year; notably the Holy Week one that could not have been more ill-timed as it disrupted our Good Friday traditions and customs affecting hundreds and hundreds of people who had planned attending these functions let alone all those volunteers who had spent a year preparing for them. This is called crisis management.

So let's discuss the "best technology to capture the waste it produces" or, rather, I would like to ask a question. What happens to the toxic waste after it's captured? Minister Fenech states that "it will be disposed of in the most secure manner possible, not in rusty containers". And then what? Can the toxic waste be transformed into something else that is beneficial like fertiliser? Or will this toxic waste remain toxic waste, stored away for hundreds of years somewhere till it all blows up out of sheer boredom despite the rustproof containers?

In this day and age, can we actually justify producing toxic waste in any form no matter how effectively it is stored? While that deadly oil slick moves nearer and nearer the state of Louisiana can we, with hands on heart, feel that we can go on like this till 2015 at the earliest? I am truly flummoxed by it all. Individual installation of alternative energy devices is still prohibitively expensive and does not save enough to make it economically viable despite the subsidies in the Budget.

Again, in the middle of a financial crisis like this, one can hardly go out and splash out on a plethora of energy-saving appliances to replace one's old ones, especially if the dear things are still functioning beautifully apart from them bleeping and bleating in protest during power cuts! To make matters even more complicated, installing solar panels or windmills on top of apartment blocks is virtually impossible and Malta is made up of these blocks to a large extent, which is why alternative energy sources can only be tackled at a national level to be effective.

Therefore, while I totally agree with Minister Fenech that there should be "no dirty politics" with regard to this issue and that "the truth is clean", I simply cannot understand why wind and solar energy are so noticeable by their absence! The logic of opting for the lesser of the two evils as explained by Minister Fenech in his article can only be justified in a crisis situation and should be a decision that is unequivocally qualified as such. Decisions such as this should come hand in hand with a long-term plan about how the government is going to cope with future exigencies. All we have at present is that, maybe, by 2015 we will have gas. Is that enough? No, I don't think so.

This Delimara project, now obfuscated as it is by allegations of this, that and the other, must be regarded as a crisis management decision and should have been presented alongside an ancillary plan to tap our natural resources to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, reduce health hazards and cut electricity bills. This, dear minister, is not a political issue but a national one. You are not answerable to the Leader of the Opposition alone, no matter how annoying he is, but to all of us too; people of whatever political persuasion, colour or creed. It is, after all, the job of the Leader of the Opposition to be annoying. All too often are tin-pot politics brought into play when very serious issues like this are discussed. This politicising must stop. We have to start thinking nationally and we have to seriously start to think green. Let's do it.

kzt@onvol.net