Energy independence ambitions: A new sense of urgency is required

In a world where barbarians who imagine they honour their god, their religion, and their co-religionists by blowing up scores of innocent people whose only crime is to disagree with their fascist zealotry, and in a world where the greatest project in the modern world — the European Union, for all its fault — is destablisied by a mixture of fear, hubris, and ignorance, it may be difficult to get excited over delays in establishing alternative sources of energy. 

However, the instability made possible, if not probable, by Islamic State savagery and Brexit folly makes energy independence one of the great imperatives of our world, especially as this is a small, peripheral country that still imports about 90% of its energy needs.

Reaching that point, however unattainable it may seem, is an objective worthy of the greatest commitment, energy and cross-party, cross-border solidarity. That objective should be the focus of the kind of concerted all-island effort difficult to generate other than in times of war. Achieving energy independence, or even a kind of energy security, is, after all, a modern version of the imperial wars once fought over undeveloped natural resources. The paradigm may have shifted but the pressures are far greater today as we have become utterly dependent on a guaranteed supply of energy.