A biomethane economy could create a new source of revenue for farmers and help to reduce both agricultural emissions and replace imported fertiliser, industry experts have claimed.
According to Gas Networks Ireland director, David Kelly, with the right structures and policies in place a new biomethane sector could play a key part in ensuring the agriculture sector “meets its carbon reduction targets”.
Gas Networks Ireland, which is state-owned, operates Ireland’s national gas network but its licence does not allow it to produce gas.
Biomethane economy
Kelly told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine last week that there is a significant opportunity for the agricultural and energy sectors “to join forces and create a thriving biomethane economy” in Ireland by 2030.
“We believe Ireland’s gas network can be a key enabler of, and help to accelerate, the development of this new national biomethane economy, and, importantly for Irish farmers, it can also help to reduce agricultural emissions.
“For rural Ireland, this industry could provide a new revenue stream as farm waste can become a source of income.
“An important byproduct of biomethane production is digestate, which can replace imported fertiliser, protect our watercourses by reducing nitrates and diminish Ireland’s exposure to international fluctuations in price and supply,” Kelly said.
Separately Declay Murray, chief executive of Biocore Environmental, also told the joint committee that Ireland needed to get its biomethane industry up and working in order to be ready for European Commission regulations on anaerobic digestion (AD).
“A number of issues are happening on the farming side of the house where our spread window is getting narrower and the storage window gets longer.
“Farmers are having difficulties with what they are putting out on their land and how much they can put out.
“We believe that the anaerobic digestion industry can offer a mutually beneficial arrangement to farmers whereby we can take in slurries and probably pay for grass sileage or some sort of crops such as that and then provide them with fertiliser at a time of the year when it is important for them to put out fertiliser,” Murray said.
Slurry
Biocore Environmental – which has two AD plants, one in Co. Roscommon and another in the east of England – outlined to TDs and senators that currently, Ireland has around 10 AD plants, compared to around 100 in Northern Ireland, 700 in the UK and 10,000 in Germany.
He also highlighted to the committee that “Ireland has a fairly unique situation” in relation to slurry because although “a farmer can take a tank of slurry from his slurry pit, put it out on the field, and that is fine” Murray said “the minute he drives out the gate and brings it to me in an AD it becomes a waste”.
“That makes no sense. Indeed it causes problems for farmers. A number of farmers, particularly throughout the past number of wet winters, turned up at the plant asking whether we can take some stuff in.
“Where we can help, we help. However, a plant of our size in Co. Roscommon should be able to take in 5,000 to 6,000 tonnes of slurry every year and process it through the plant,” he added.
The chief executive of the Renewable Gas Forum Ireland (RGFI), a not-for-profit industry forum for biomethane in Ireland, also told the Oireachtas joint committee that “Ireland lags well behind other EU member states” in relation to policy and legislation for the sector.
PJ McCarthy said: “We are asking the committee to support the development of a scalable and sustainable indigenous biomethane industry which we believe will be beneficial to Irish farmers as they seek to meet the twin objectives of future-proofing the continued viability of family farms and maximising the environmental and social sustainability of the sector”.