World production of oil is reaching its peak yet the Irish Government is doing more to hinder than help the development of alternative energy sources, a conference entitled the Challenge and Opportunity of Peak Oil heard in Kinsale, Co Cork, yesterday.
Green Party energy spokesman Eamon Ryan claimed Ireland was beginning to fall behind its international competitors who were developing new energy sources based on wind, wave, tidal, solar, geothermal and biomass technologies.
Almost 90 per cent of our energy was provided from imported fossil fuels. Mr Ryan insisted Ireland should be aiming to reduce this to 80 per cent by 2010, 50 per cent by 2025 and by the middle of the century we should be net exporters of energy.
"This is not wishful utopian thinking but the reality we face as oil and gas production declines in the first half of this century, forcing us to make the transition to a renewable economy."
Other speakers at the two-day event included Richard Heinberg, author of The Party's Over - Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies, and Richard Douthwaite, founder of the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability.
The conference also examined areas such as renewable energy options, natural building and creating sustainable community and fuel crops.