The Kettle's Boyled: Spanish snails often live dangerously
The Atlantic port at Tarbert on the Shannon had planning for a gas terminal, but it was blocked by the Green Party and others.
We are all familiar with Spain, or we know where it is. Spain is an important trading partner with Ireland, and Irish produce can be found in all their major supermarkets. If you buy fruit or out of season vegetables in your local grocers here it is likely they come from Spain. And of course Spain is popular with Irish holidaymakers.
Like Ireland, Spain has almost unlimited potential for sustainable energy from wind and solar and gets most of its energy from these sources, leaving it almost immune to global energy price fluctuations and giving Spain electricity prices that are among the lowest in Europe. Yet they continue to invest in wind and solar, because energy from these sources is easy to export and finds a ready market across Europe. We could do the same, if it wasn’t for the snails.
In the part of Spain that is close to the Portuguese border in the south of the country, near the town of Mazagón at the confluence of the Tinto and Odiel rivers, there stands the well-preserved Rábida Monastery, an important piece of Spanish and indeed world heritage. A huge monument to Columbus on the riverbank points to its significance.
When Columbus wanted to fund his ‘new world’ project he was turned down by King Juan of Portugal so he tried the Spanish. They wouldn’t approve it unless he had the backing of the Catholic Church, so he had a chat with the Abbot in Rábida and persuaded him to give the journey his blessing. The rest, as they say, is history, and the room where he met the Abbot is nowadays known as ‘the cradle of America.’ Given its historic significance, if this site was in Ireland you’d expect that every piece of ground for fifty kilometres around would be some kind of a National Park where you couldn’t drive a nail or move a snail without an act of Parliament, but there’s a huge facility just upriver from Rábida monastery where Spain’s liquid natural gas is stored. This is Spain’s nearest port to the USA, so pragmatism rules the day. As with their policy on wind and solar power, Spain will never be short of gas if they can help it.
Sarah Carey highlighted in last week’s Irish Independent that our Atlantic port at Tarbert on the Shannon had planning for a gas terminal, but it was blocked by the Green Party and others. Now, with energy on everybody’s mind, there is a watered-down proposal to build a small, token terminal across the river in Clare, to go back to square one even though the Tarbert terminal is ready to build. What odds the Clare project will meet a few snails and will have to be deferred for another twenty years?
Sometimes, you’d wish we were more like the Spanish. If this issue was on their desks, the diggers would be in Tarbert by Monday.
