Alfred Mifsud has written a second excellent article on the troubles of Enemalta. It can be claimed that his first piece on the subject in The Malta Independent on Sunday of some weeks ago was what pushed Minister Tonio Fenech into his recent public musings on the state of Enemalta. The second piece has now defined the possible parameters of a rescue operation quite clearly, in the process delivering a mild rebuke to the Opposition to abstain from making rash promises.

I suggest that the one blot was the very final paragraph where we are told to “Forget crazy investment like offshore wind farms... the feasibility of town gas infrastructure as gas is cheaper, cleaner and more economic in transmission losses”.

Mifsud cannot have examined the investment costs of offshore wind farms in detail (onshore wind does have some role to play too). Timescale is also important, and there the government and its advisers have been speaking with a forked tongue.

Neither does he seem to have looked at the “gas” question. What is “town gas infrastructure”? He cannot be referring to the creation of an actual distribution system for town gas: that has no relevance to our problems of generating electrical energy.

If he is referring to creating a supply of natural gas, has he worked out the investment costs of a pipeline or, probably less possible for us, a supply of liquid natural gas with re-gasification? The current relative “cheapness” of gas may not last as demand increases and we will not be well up the queue as we have dragged our feet. But one must also remember that we cannot do without a fossil fuel back-up in any case given the potential variability of supplies of renewable energy, even if one believes that we can have a supply of RE able to meet demand. The solution is probably to have as varied as mix of energy supply as possible and feasible. But that would require far more decisive and careful planning than we have had to date.

E.A. Mallia

ATTARD