Dr. Ciara Beausang:

My understanding is this is the situation since the recent recast of the renewable energy directive in 2018. There is another iteration of the directive coming quite soon. I am not aware of any change to how the fuel will be considered at that point in the life cycle. I will reiterate that while the emissions are not counted from that particular point of combustion, it does not mean there are no associated emissions at other stages of the life cycle. We would see emissions counted for any fertiliser input, for the energy the digester itself requires and for the methane losses that occur. It is not to say there are zero emissions. There are emissions associated with it. In the preliminary research I have done on grass silage the emissions I have found for silage produced with multi-species swards and legumes were between 20 g of carbon dioxide equivalent per megajoule. If we were to look at grass silage produced from perennial ryegrass with a high nitrogen input we would be looking at approximately 30 g to 40 g of carbon dioxide equivalent per megajoule. This accounts for the whole life cycle. This is what the figure would be, although the emissions from combustion are not included.