“The next decade cannot be a missed opportunity for bioenergy in an agricultural country with a productive land base.”
This was the message from the president of the Irish Bioenergy Association (IrBEA), Sean Finan, at a conference on biofuel in transport.
Finan said: “We can produce crop-based biofuels to address the climate challenge while at the same time offer alternative land use options to farmers across many sectors and enterprises.”
The conference is taking place today, Wednesday, October 30, in Dublin.
The objective of today’s conference was to create and start real debate around transport, climate action and energy and this is something IrBEA feels has been missing in terms of the discussions taking place around climate action.
Finan said: “In the recently published Climate Action Plan we have seen ambitious targets set by the Government in relation to the use of electric vehicles (EV) and some would argue at the expense of the promotion of biofuels and bioenergy as a solution to the challenges we face.
We support the roll out of EV but would caution the Government on putting all its eggs in the EV basket without taking a holistic approach.
“The Government must ensure a mix of technologies and solutions which are needed to address the challenges we face in the transport sector.”
Concluding, Finan said: “Bioenergy could become a vital constituent of the transport fuel mix and we need the Government to realise this.”