Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I agree with regard to least-cost but there is nothing least-cost about burning biomass in a power station. As an engineer, Professor Ó Gallachóir would agree there is no economic case for losing two thirds of waste heat up a chimney and that it is purely a social case. I would love to see us drive Bord na Mona towards the retrofit business. The economic cost to the State of Bord na Mona continuing to run peat-fired power stations to 2025, to give that as an example, must be some 5 million tonnes a year. If we stop that earlier, let us say in 2020, in that five years we are taking about saving 25 million tonnes. It is in the ETS but, as has just been stated, we will have to pay hundreds of millions of euro to buy credits or give up credits in the ETS. This would be an economic decision that would return hundreds of millions of euro to this State, which we could invest in Bord na Mona directly to employ people to develop energy efficient housing. That is the clever economic development we should take.

I come back to my key question. As well as doing the energy modelling, does Professor Ó Gallachóir not think there is a case for preparing a national land use plan? For example, if we are going to ramp up to 20,000 hectares of new forestry as a good form of carbon storage, what type of forestry do we need and where will it be? How much grass is going to feed our animals and how much are we going to send into the transport system, if that is the plan? Where is that going to grow and who is going to grow it? In addition to all of those questions is that relating to where we stand globally. Do we just get as much biomass as we can in a winner takes all, "grab the biomass from wherever we can get it" approach, or are we going to be part of a global, responsible management system for biomass? Does Professor Ó Gallachóir agree in regard to the national land use plan and being part of an international co-operative mechanism in terms of what we do on biomass?