At long last Malta’s energy priorities appear to be developing in a positive direction and the country’s energy options now appear set to “open up”, as was reported last week.

For far too long, at least from a public perspective, these priorities have been going nowhere fast. Now it appears, on the surface at least, that matters are coming together.

It may still be a pipe dream, but last week’s announcement by the Prime Minister that Malta is now seriously considering the prospects of linking the islands to a natural gas pipeline is welcome news indeed.

The potential advent of such a natural gas link, coupled with the already slated electricity interconnector project, would truly spell a cleaner future for the quality of the country’s air and its people’s lives.

For starters, the interconnector project would pipe in electricity from the European grid – electricity and pollution that would no longer be produced in Malta.

This, in turn, would allow for the closure of the dinosaur of a power station in Marsa. The interconnector link will also be required so as to render the wind farm at Sikka l-Bajda feasible in that excess electricity generated by the projected 18 to 20 turbines would need to be fed back into the European grid lest it be wasted.

Secondly, the natural gas that would be piped to Malta would be used at Delimara Power Station, but the ensuing air pollution would be at a mere fraction of what it is now, and, arguably, what it will be once the controversial heavy-fuel-run power station extension is up and running.

The combination of the interconnector, a gas-fired power station and the wind farm project would stand to place Malta further toward the vanguard rather than the rearguard position in the race toward clean energy sources and lower pollution emissions that it always has been in.

Indeed, if the country were to play its cards right – by seeing the interconnector project and the albeit embryonic gas pipeline project through to fruition, coupled with a robust solar and wind energy programme – it could wind up as one of the least polluting countries in the EU.

But, of course, all this comes at a price and perhaps Malta’s new optimism with respect to the pricey pipeline project is because it smells EU funding in the offing.

As recently as June of last year the government was still all but ruling out the natural gas option, having deemed the capital costs at the time as prohibitive.

But now the government appears more upbeat. Speaking last Friday, the Prime Minister alluded to the possibility of EU funding for the pipeline project as part of the EU’s trillion-euro bid to cut the bloc’s dependency on Middle Eastern oil and Russian gas.

The issue of dependency is all the more pressing for Malta, as it is 100 per cent dependent on the usage and importation of oil for its electricity generation.

Compounding matters significantly is the country’s dearth of freshwater, a situation that necessitates large electricity expenditure as part of the costly desalination process. Malta had received a paltry €20 million out of the EU’s €4 billion energy fund allocated through the European Economic Recovery Plan toward its interconnector project. Perhaps its share from a trillion euros would be significantly higher – possibly high enough to fund at least the lion’s share of this even more ambitious project.