Mr. Barry Caslin:

It could be used on a farm if you had a use for the heat on the farm. It is always a challenge to make use of such heat in a rural area. That can be a challenge with CHP. The other challenge is getting grid connectivity and supporting that electricity back to the grid. That is where size or scale is probably needed to justify CHP.

Our journey of travel at present appears to be around biomethane, which is what this meeting is about. Land use change will obviously be required but the question is whether we will plough up grassland to grow perennial rye grasses and remove biodiversity in swards. That is one potential environmental issue that could crop up. There are ways around that. We could use existing swards, maybe by stitching in clover, to fix the nitrogen in those swards. There may be ways around this. It may mean we have lower yields per hectare but the consequence may be more hectares to balance that out.

Fugitive emissions have been a challenge on the Continent in the past. This has been an issue in Germany and Denmark in the past but we have learned from many of the mistakes. Modern plants have become better managed. It is all down to the management of those plants that there are no fugitive emissions. The spreading of digestate so that 85% of what goes into a digester will come out as digestate in the end has to be managed carefully to minimise emissions. You could not splash-plate that slurry or digestate back onto the land. It would have to be injected to minimise any ammonia emissions because, essentially, you are dealing with nitrogen in ammonia form. That could be an environmental issue, if it is not directly injected.