Dr. Terry McGrail:

People have always regarded carbon fibres as being very expensive. I personally worked in an industry where we focused on aircraft. The goal was to build lightweight, more efficient, more manoeuvrable aircraft using carbon fibre. Over the last few years, carbon fibre has come down enormously in price and is now usable in traditional Irish industries such as construction, agricultural vehicles and infrastructure. The Irish Composites Centre is working on a European project where we are making carbon fibre from lignin, which is a waste product from the papermaking industry. We are well on the way to developing a new carbon fibre which will be much cheaper. The whole manufacturing process is much cheaper because instead of using huge furnaces to make the carbon fibre, we do it through a microwave process. In principle, small companies can have their own carbon fibre manufacturing plant. The matter that we are talking about today of sustainability and climate change focuses people's minds. They are saying that it may be expensive now but it will be much cheaper later on if we use these materials. Pressure from people such as the committee members brings climate change to people's notice and forces people to think about utilising composites.