This week, Energy Minister Miriam Dalli casually announced that the government will invest in a renewable energy project with a North African country. No plans or details were announced: just an announcement for the press which supposedly is going to serve as propaganda for the Labour government.
The amateurishness and the delusion in all of this behaviour is unprecedented in Maltese politics. We used to have extensive discussions and long winded critiques about every administration’s energy plans, but nowadays political discourse has eroded to the extent that the Energy Minister is able to announce a mega-project without giving any details.
The Energy Minister has a very long track-record of refusing to disclose information and doing things at her own discretion. She also selectively chooses who to speak in the press, consistently choosing journalists who are not competent and literate on energy ministers so as to avoid replying to difficult questions – in fact, Cartoon Network (Lovin Malta) is one of her preferred outlets.
Meanwhile, in the same week, she reiterated that the government will keep issuing subsidies ad infinitum to keep energy costs low, re-affirming that the government has no strategic plans to address its energy issues. Basically, the government’s plan is to burn our taxes into inefficient and costly renewable energy projects while subsidising electricity bills. Obviously, this does not make sense, but in our political environmental, anyone who brings up nuances about this policy is accused of letting our grandmothers die from cold during the Winter. Ironically, grandmothers and grandfathers died with heat-stroke due to Miriam Dalli’s gross incompetence and the blame was shifted on Enemalta’s CEO.
She also said that the renewable energy projectย involve hydrogen and accused Opposition members who are against it of being “extremist”. Apparently, being against stupid risks is “extreme”. The political discourse is as usual dumbed down to foster the dictatorial atmosphere: anyone against us is an extremist.
There is no rational behind this. The Labour government has chosen to build a hydrogen project because it sounds nice on paper. No one actually has the infrastructure for this kind of project and handling hydrogen is also very complicated because it is a dangerous element. Unlike natural gas, hydrogen is highly flammable. This is like when you need to go on an outdoors trip and you buy a Tesla instead of a Land Rover because Tesla is better for the environment even though you are not certain whether your vehicle will survive halfway the trip despite your choice being even more expensive (not to mention the increased safety risks).
This is Minister Miriam Dalli’s energy policy in a nutshell: Enemalta is bankrupt and is subsidised by the government. Electrogas and China make a profit and the government keeps issuing subsidies to keep electricity and fuel prices low. Meanwhile, we invest in renewable energy for PR purposes and the sunk cost capital accumulates even further with no exit planned for subsidies.
The Minister refuses to be confronted about this irrational and senseless policy. She also lied about supposedly hedging Malta’s gas purchases: there was no hedge. Malta simply ended paying higher prices for the gas because the government bought gas at oil-index-linked prices. That’s not a hedge: that’s a bet that oil prices wouldn’t rise as much as gas prices and the exact opposite has happened nearly consistently. A hedge is like an insurance which you buy cheaply against future potential events – the government doesn’t have hedges. The Minister for Finance said that the government affords to issue more money to cover the higher cost of subsidies: that’s not a cushion, that’s just spending more, which is detrimental in the long-term.
The government is now planning to build a wind turbine. The wind turbine will cost up to โฌ1 billion for a capacity of 300MW. For the same price the energy capacity for an oil or gas project would be ten times more. Labour has no plan and no strategy behind its energy policy and is simply doing things by PR and management by crisis at a massive cost. There’s also no discussion and critique about this situation enabling Labour to keep digging further without any proper scrutiny or accountability.
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