Energy losing extravaganza

The heftiest single element in Malta's large import bill reflects the cost of supplying our islands with energy and a large volume of the water we utilise. Without oil imports modern Malta would grind to a halt. Oil feeds our power stations, which face a constantly rising demand load. It comes from industry, the hotel and commercial sectors and public service departments, naturally.

But demand from households is on the up and up. Apart from the usual array of white goods to be found in the bulk of our houses, air conditioners are spreading fast. Unlike refrigerators, washing machines, tumble driers and electric cookers, there tend to be several of them in an increasing number of abodes, outstripping multiple water heaters installed to supply hot water for bathrooms and the kitchen.

The desalinating and reverse osmosis plants that ensure that water flows through our pipes for washing purposes at least, if paradoxically for not-so-much widespread drinking than in the days when tap water was less guaranteed, guzzle energy and account for a chunk of the load on the power stations. They are the costliest means of producing water.

In this broad context it is essential that the public should be educated and encouraged to be careful in the use of energy. Care should be and is usually exercised by industrial and commercial users. They are normally highly cost-conscious and scrutinise utilisation through monthly management accounts. Public sector use is not as closely monitored as it could be, and there is some room for energy savings there.

Household consumption is usually monitored by users who do not simply pay their water and electricity bill when they receive it. Yet it does remain one area where more consciousness could be generated. There has been some effort to induce households to install solar heating. But, though this is creeping in it has yet to take off meaningfully. That is mainly due both to the initial outlay as well as to uncertainty regarding the pay-back period, which anyway is not a concept that is easy to translate into hard figures, even if one had the disposition to do it and to go on with regular comparison.

Ongoing education and encouragement to utilise all possible means of energy savings, such as indirectly by ensuring that new houses and other buildings have wells, should be promoted without fail. Whether that should go on to take the form of imposing a legal requirement on the citizen, is another matter by far.

That is what seems to be in the offing. On April 15 The Times reported that all new buildings would have to be adequately insulated in order to save energy, according to proposed legislation. The resources and infrastructure minister told that to a conference on promoting energy efficiency in Maltese buildings.

There is in the pipeline a Registration of Building Industry Control Act. It would oblige architects to see that its provisions are incorporated in the design of a house. The minister said that these provisions would stipulate, among others, that buildings be adequately insulated, especially when it comes to roofs and outer walls. Large windows will have to be double or triple glazed. There would also be emphasis on the size of wells, which would reflect the size of the site.

The conference itself - on Renewable and Efficient Energy: the Cost-savings Home - was an interesting initiative by the Building Industry Consultative Council. That was reflected in the themes it covered, including the benefits of using domestic solar water heaters, efficient collection of rainwater and a general improvement in how energy is used and saved.

Further initiatives along those lines could be part of an ongoing information programme, aimed both at potential new house owners, at building developers - and at the government itself which, through time, has been a glaring culprit when it came to inefficient planning.

Nevertheless, to go on to consider making provisions like incorporating double or triple glazing legally binding would be illiberal to an extreme. That would be an intrusion in the way one decides to act within one's private province (unlike, say, smoking in the presence of others). The argument that, through his or her actions one could be raising Malta's import bill does not really hold enough water to justify legal imposition.

If it did the government could go on to lay down the limit of how much food one consumes, to take but one example. Such policy extravaganzas are not compatible with liberal democracy. The government should conserve its energy for proper initiatives that seek to demonstrate and persuade what one should do in one's own interest, without actually ordering anyone to do it.