Madam, - Of the many problems facing Ireland over the next few years, one very significant one has so far largely escaped discussion in your paper. This is the crisis facing energy production and how we are going to address it.
Madam, - Of the many problems facing Ireland over the next few years, one very significant one has so far largely escaped discussion in your paper. This is the crisis facing energy production and how we are going to address it.
Last week oil reached $60 a barrel for the first time. Two years ago this would have been incomprehensible. Now that we have reached it, it barely merits comment except for some idle speculation as to what the price might be later in the year.
It is not possible continuously to increase oil production. At some point you reach the geological limits. A recent report commissioned by the US government surveyed 12 oil experts and found that nine expect this limit to be reached within five years. It is difficult to predict exactly when we will reach this limit, but absolutely clear that we will.
As a contracting energy supply would be calamitous for our economy and way of life, it is now incumbent on the many economists who blithely predict that rising energy prices will draw alternative forms of energy production out of the lab and into industry to show exactly what these technologies are and how they will meet the demand. We must either prove we have alternative sources of energy ready to come on stream or at least start the discussion on how we are going radically to change our economy and society to exist in the new energy constricted reality.
This is a problem which is well documented, uncontroversial in scientific circles, and completely ignored by your paper and society at large. It is also a problem which, if not addressed, will have terrible economic and social consequences. - Yours, etc,
GUS LEGGE, Owens Avenue, Mount Brown, Dublin 8.