Dr. Brian Ó Gallachóir:

The Deputy raised a number of interesting points. He referred to a significant conflict which I did not bring up in the context of what we should do about agriculture and its impact on the energy system. One of our sets of results shows that if we continue as we are with the beef and dairy industry and if we want to meet more stringent targets, then the energy system must do more. Part of the solution in this regard relates to bioenergy. Immediately a further conflict arises in respect of agriculture in the context of competition for land use. This is another issue with which we must grapple and there is no easy answer in respect of it.

In terms of hydropower, we have actually exploited our best sites. There are some smaller sites which could be exploited but they would not contribute a significant amount in the context of our overall energy requirements. When Ardnacrusha was developed, the grid was developed around it. At that time, effectively 100% of our electricity came from the renewable source of hydropower. At present, approximately 2% of our electricity comes from it. Electricity represents less than 20% of our overall energy use, which is a very small proportion. Our analysis suggests that the biggest opportunity in terms of meeting our emissions reduction target at least cost relates to wind energy and bioenergy. In the context of bioenergy, the use of biogas has been neglected. It is possible to anaerobically digest the organic fraction of waste to generate biogas and one can also grow crops to generate it. One of the best crops, in the context of land use and energy output per hectare, is grass. Of course we have expertise in this area. Essentially, we could foresee a situation whereby grass could be used in anaerobic digesters to generate biogas. The latter could be then fed into the national gas grid and used to meet our heating and transport requirements. The latter would be done through the adoption of compressed natural gas, CNG, vehicles. Some activity is happening in this area in Ireland but the pace is very slow. As with many things in the energy space, a significant boost will be necessary if we are to make the transition we require.

On producing energy from waste, a number of the larger landfill sites have electricity generation plants. However, there are others where, as the Deputy stated, the gas is flared off. My view on the production of energy from waste is that we should seek to generate biogas and feed that into the gas grid by upgrading it to biomethane.