Dr. Brian Ó Gallachóir:

Yes. The Senator made a second point about the 50% reduction by 2050 being relative to 1990 levels. In some of the work we did previously we examined the EU low-carbon roadmap, which indicated that in the EU one can get a 50% reduction in emissions in agriculture. However, we are not experts in agriculture, so we just applied the roadmap in order to see what the consequences were for the energy system. We concluded that if one could get a 50% reduction in agriculture and a 95% reduction in the energy system then one could achieve the overall 80% goal. We have talked to people in Teagasc and other experts in agriculture and realise that achieving a 50% emissions reduction in agriculture in Ireland is not feasible because agriculture in Ireland is very different from agriculture in the rest of the EU. Ireland's emissions are dominated by activities associated with grazing. Crops and housed animals give other mitigation options that Ireland does not have.

Teagasc is working on projections up to 2050 and we are using a zero-percent target as an interim measure. The target suggests that if we want agricultural activity to grow then it needs to find mitigation to reach a zero sum. We have made a crude assumption which is not based on evidence from agriculture. Clearly, if we want the beef and dairy sector to continue then the target would be in that vein. Obviously, if the country chooses not to continue, then we can apply a different target. As I said, our focus is more on how an 80% target could be delivered in the energy system.

The Senator also mentioned the electrification of heat. Our model generated certain results in the context of the 2020 targets because we must meet an ambitious non-ETS target, and Food Harvest 2020 has other knock-on effects. As I mentioned, emissions generated in electricity are associated with ETS. If we use electricity for heat or transport then we will shift them from the non-ETS to the ETS sector, an option that is open to us. I have two things to say about the electrification of heat. First, we have about 1.6 million permanently occupied dwellings in Ireland and nearly half of them have oil-fired heating. The amount of oil we use is unusual when compared with other EU member states, but it is the result of our housing stock being spread out. I will outline one of the measures we could examine. We could analyse how many of the 700,000 dwellings with oil-fired hearing are located close to the natural gas grid, and a sensible move in the short term would be to connect them to natural gas. The initiative would immediately lead to improved efficiency and reduced emissions. In the long-term, feeding biogas into the gas grid means that housing stock can access renewable gas.

We are examining the possibility of attaching an air source heat pump for houses located away from the gas grid. Therefore, the electricity requirement would be drawn from the ambient air temperature. That would be a sensible way to electrify heat in the residential stock. We are carrying out a further analysis with other modelling tools that focus more closely on the power system and on housing and residential energy use to see which houses might be suitable. One could adopt a strategy of aiming for larger and more inefficient houses, upgrade them to reduce their energy consumption and then electrify their heat use to see what kind of incremental gains could be obtained from energy efficiency and electrification. That means the electrification of heat plus the gasification of heat, which is often overlooked.

Achieving the ambitious target of reducing emissions by 80% by 2050 would require electrification of heat and transport and increasing our electricity usage from 20% to 30%. It would mean the remaining 70% would not be electricity-based but largely biomass-based. In some areas, such as aviation, kerosene is still being used. Electrification is only part of the story but it is an important part.