Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 9 June 2015
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation
Strategic Plan: Bord na Móna
1:30 pm
Mr. Mike Quinn:
Potentially we will need more because we will not stop harvesting peat. The energy peat will run out in 2030 but we still have a significant stock of raw material for the growing media which I referred to earlier and for the briquette factories. This year we will harvest approximately 3.6 million tonnes of peat. That will drop post-2030 to approximately 1.5 million and, therefore, will halve in volume. We believe we can fully employ the staff we currently have in biomass production. It is the same skill-set and the same harvesters, tractors and trailers will be needed to haul the willow, etc. We can make that transition because we have, hopefully, 15 years to do it.