Ireland had the highest consumption of biomass of all EU member states last year, according to most recent data by the EU’s statistical office Eurostat.
Compared to the EU average of 3.2t per capita, Ireland’s biomass consumption was 7.5t per capita in 2022, new figures show.
Fodder crops and grazed biomass account for 5t per capita, which suggests that Ireland has “extraordinary” livestock, according to Eurostat.
Biomass is an organic, non-fossil material of plant or animal origin used as a raw material for the production of biofuels. Wood is the most typical and largest biomass energy source.
Biomass
The consumption of biomass remained fairly stable between 2000 and 2022. Last year, however, EU consumption of biomass materials fell to the lowest value since 2015.
Biomass accounted for almost a quarter (23%) of the domestic material consumption (DMC) of all EU member states last year, according to Eurostat figures.
Varying greatly across countries, Malta had the lowest consumption at 1.1t per capita, while Denmark and Finland had high consumptions at 7.4t and 6.9t per capita.
Eurostat notes that economies with high biomass consumption are often specialised in timber production, such as in Finland, or certain livestock production such as in Ireland or Denmark.
Using biomass as a fuel is deemed “carbon neutral” as carbon was trapped from the atmosphere during the biomass life cycle. However, there are several sustainability concerns, Eurostat said.
Biofuels can be split up into three categories:
- Solid biofuels, including fuelwood, wood residues, wood pellets, animal waste, vegetal material;
- Liquid biofuels, including biogasoline, biodiesel, bio jet kerosene;
- Biogases from anaerobic fermentation and from thermal processes.
Meanwhile, the consumption of fossil energy materials in the EU declined steadily over the past two decades, aligning with reduced carbon dioxide emissions, Eurostat said.
However, after a significant drop in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, a rebound in consumption started in 2021, up 5% from 2020, and continued in 2022.
Consumption of fossil energy material varied from 1t per person in Latvia to 6.9t per person in Estonia. The EU average was around 2.6t per capita.