FWIW [short thread]: I appeared last week at the Oireachtas [Irish Parliament] Joint Committee on Climate Action to discuss the potential role of LNG importation in Ireland's energy system.
Full meeting video and transcript here: oireachtas.ie/en/debates/deb…
My (3-page) written submission, with references, here, 'Is there a Role for LNG Importation in Ireland’s “Fair Share” of Global Climate Action?': data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/…
Summary: the answer is "No, not really".
Why? The available time for IE to "transition" to zero-GHG is much shorter than yet acknowledged politically or in wider society. Need nett-zero by 2035 at the LATEST; not, as now, nett-zero by 2050 at the EARLIEST. Latter is physically out-of-date and deeply unjust.
This means rapidly declining role for natural gas overall. And of NG supply, LNG from fracking likely has worst overall emissions intensity so should be dropped first (or, in IE case, not started in the first place).
We DO have a serious and growing energy security predicament: but LNG is at best a superficial, palliative, treatment which merely disguises symptoms and delays genuinely effective response.
There is no energy security without climate security.
Best immediate (15-year) route to IE climate AND energy security is to minimise non-essential consumption, and maximise indigenous very-low-GHG supply. That currently looks like wind+solar+H2-storage.
[Nuclear would need a whole other thread. Not ruling it out: but very little relevance to IE on this immediate 15-year perspective.]
The sine qua non for serious discussion is to acknowledge that this actually now is an "emergency" and "emergency responses" are appropriate. Until then we are still rearranging deck-chairs: such busy-work may make us feel better, but it is actually squandering response time.
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