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PAG urges development of renewable energy on the Island NOW

Positive Action Group is calling for the Manx Government to review the almost total dependence on fossil fuels to meet the Island's energy requirements.

This follows P A G's March meeting in which former DoLGE Minister, John Rimington explained the current policy and outlined the necessity to explore alternative forms of energy generation. See http://www.manxherald.com/Politics/213.

The recently announced above inflation price increases by the MEA (16.25%) and Manx Gas (22.5%) illustrate how exposed Island residents are to price rises in global oil and, especially, gas markets. These increases will really affect the less well off in the coming winter months.

P A G Committee member Andrew Jessopp comments:
"Almost all of our energy need is dependent on imports brought here by pipeline, cable or ship. The incinerator, although capable of producing a small proportion of our electricity requirements, has hardly generated any electricity this year. It started producing again at the end of July after nearly 8 months 'downtime'”. See http://www.manxherald.com/News/300.html

“Similarly interruption of supplies of gas via the gas pipeline would create significant impacts on electricity generation at Pulrose power station.

Our Island could be generating electricity from renewable resources such as wind. We now need the political vision and will to carry such an idea forward.

These projects take a number of years to realise so it is vital that our government press on right now.

We are vulnerable as an island to events beyond our shores, so decisive action is called for. It is estimated that a fifth of our electricity could easily be generated by wind, which after all is a free natural resource here".

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