Dr. Terry McGrail:

I am director of the Irish Composites Centre located at the University of Limerick. First, I would like to say that I am not an academic. I spent all my life prior to coming to Ireland working in industry. I would like to thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to talk about how crucial composites are in Ireland's sustainable transport system and how they will play a key role in enabling the Government to deliver on the climate action plan. Ireland is internationally recognised as being good at composites, with a strong science and technology presence and a good spread of manufacturing companies across the whole of the island. Irish industry across different sectors believes that it is necessary for the Government to provide dedicated funding to sustain a composites centre that will give industry the world-class support in the way that IComp, the Irish Composites Centre, does.

What is a composite? I will show the committee these are carbon fibres, which have been braided by a company in Tallaght to form a tube. This is combined with a liquid resin, and when that is heated up, one gets a material like this, which is a composite material 70% lighter than what the equivalent metal part would be. That is the simplest composite. There are quite a lot more complicated ones than that. The fibres are usually carbon, but they can make glass, or they can also be natural fibres such as wax, which is obviously a fibre traditionally grown in Ireland.

Why use composites? As I said, composites can give a 70% reduction in weight compared to metals. Why is this important to transport? It is important simply because reducing vehicle weight by 10% reduces fuel consumption by 7%, and this is illustrated by aircraft such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus A350 XWB, which are now built out of 50% composite by weight, resulting in significant fuel saving and also giving them much extended range without stopping.

Composites have been used to reduce emissions in other forms of transport as well. Electric cars, trains and lorries are using larger and larger amounts of composites. A really good example of this is in China. This is a very difficult statistic to believe, but every week, 1,900 new electric buses are coming onto roads in China, and all these are built using 50% composite material. An SME in Mayo is making zero-emission composite boats, which are half the weight and have twice the range of standard boats.

Additional to the weight savings in the material, composite manufacturers use less energy than used in metals and cement. Another advantage is that composites do not rust, so composite vehicles last longer and are much more sustainable than metal vehicles. As they are rust-free and light-weight, composite structures are essential for making use of Ireland's natural resources, which include wind and water for wind and water turbines to generate renewable energy and also for biogas from anaerobic digestion of agricultural waste. The plants to manufacture this require three 20,000 l tanks for each plant, and composite is the ideal material out of which to make these. In Germany, almost every village or farm is now being equipped with these anaerobic digesters to make what is essentially carbon-neutral biogas.

In keeping with the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Richard Bruton's recent statement regarding the need to create a circular economy, IComp has developed an innovative technology to recycle post-consumer plastic bottles. Across the world, 20 million tonnes of this polymer are going to making plastic bottles every year. That is 3 kg for every man, woman and child on the planet going into plastic bottles. That is a very good high-performance engineering polymer, and we have developed a way to convert it into fibres like this. These fibres can be put into a microwave oven and converted into plastic parts like this, which is what is called self-reinforcing composites. One has fibres made out of this plastic within the matrix made out of the plastic, so these are very strong, very stiff, and at the end of the day, they are 100% recyclable, so one has the ideal, complete, circular economy based on this. We have patented this technology, and it is available for development across Irish industry.

Some people may have seen this development when it was featured on RTÉ news earlier this year. Ireland can be a front-runner in saving the planet from irresponsible disposable plastic if we can exploit this technology here. It does not have to be completely exploited in Ireland. It can ideally be exploited in countries, for example, in Cuba where the water is unfit to drink. Millions and millions of these plastic bottles are used across Cuba, India and Africa and are saving lives. They are saving lives by bringing clean water to people. It then becomes a useful resource for them to recycle into making parts for off-the-road vehicles, if they manufacture cars or whatever. They can make parts for these things.

Two of Ireland's most important industries are agriculture and construction, and composites are key to their longevity. In both industries, transportation of goods is a major cost. Was the committee aware that tractors, combines, combine harvesters and the all-terrain vehicles account for 7% of Ireland's annual fuel consumption? That is a huge amount of fuel being used by these vehicles. Weight reduction in agricultural vehicles and in trailers will not only reduce this fuel consumption but will also reduce land compaction, which is a major issue across the world, not just in Ireland. The yield from agricultural land in Ireland is dropping dramatically because these very heavy vehicles that are used on it are compacting the soil and the fertility is dropping. Also, road damage is a major problem in Ireland, and the Taoiseach talked about this recently and said millions of potholes and things are caused by heavy vehicles on the roads.

In the construction industry, composites are very important. We have developed a composite access cover. This is a part of an access cover, which a lot of people may know under a different name, but it is used on roads and footpaths and garage forecourts, etc. This is 70% lighter than the equivalent metal, so therefore when it is transported across the country, one is using that much less fuel to transport it. It is not just being transported across the country but it is being exported all over Europe. The ergonomics of this much better because one person can lift this, put it into place, lift it up again, instead of needing a JCB or some other mechanical device for lifting it This is something that we have developed for a company in Offaly.

Similar technologies can be applied to things like lintels, pre-stressed concrete sections and building claddings, which can be reduced in weight, resulting in major fuel reductions in transporting these across the country and also in handling them when they get to the sites where they are going.

Composites in construction and agriculture are very important. Composites are also important for updating the transport infrastructure, including bridges, station platforms, signage, utility poles, and so on. For example, a fantastic amount of updating is required on degrading concrete bridges.