More than five years ago, when Enemalta was planning a gas-fired new power station, I suggested in this newspaper (or its sister publication) whether 21st century Malta actually needed to have so much scarce land occupied by its own electricity-generating facilities when we could get all our electricity supplied by cables from the European grid, supplemented by some local solar energy.

An Enemalta official replied, claiming that such a European grid connection would be unreliable and giving up our own power generation would be unwise. When I pointed out that the whole of southern England’s electricity is supplied via cables from nuclear power stations (zero carbon emissions) in northern France (and suffers no power cuts as we do) there was no further Enemalta reply.

Enemalta then changed their mind about gas and went for heavy-fuel oil. Natural gas production around the world has shot up, is likely to remain cheaper than oil and is the least polluting of fossil fuels.

The US has discovered huge natural gas reserves and is not only approaching energy self-sufficiency but is also expected to comply with the global warming Kyoto Protocol (without having signed it) simply by replacing dirtier coal-fired power plants with gas-fired ones.

We were told that our new Delimara heavy-oil fired plant could easily switch to gas as soon as gas storage facilities were ready. Now we’re told another new gas power plant would be needed. Does this all sound like works contracts for friends and more national debt burden for the taxpayer (instead of having had just the European grid connection)?