James Bannon (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to raise this issue and am glad the Minister is in the House to reply. This is an important energy saving and environmentally sustainable process that requires a coherent policy: the development of slurry-generated electricity.

The use of organic materials such as farm slurry could generate enough electricity to power one in every three homes at peak periods. By using fuels that are readily available, the Irish Bioenergy Association estimates enough electricity could be generated to meet supply storage demands as projected by the ESB. The association's figures show that if 25% of animal slurry and manure collected in Ireland was processed using anaerobic digestion and biogas produced, it could be used to generate 2,400 MW hours of electricity during the evening peak period, a tenth of total capacity.

The new power source would reduce pollution, cut greenhouse gas emissions and lower the cost of food production. Small processing plants are operating successfully in other European states and the production of electricity from organic material is already commonplace in Germany and Sweden. There is no coherent policy here to encourage such development.

There is much debate about the shortfall in electricity supply capacity but bioenergy can be stored and used to produce electricity at specific times when demand is high. Small processing plants can be used to produce large quantities of electricity. The technology to process the organic material or biomass is used widely in farming and has proven to be very cost effective. A herd of 50 cattle will produce enough waste to generate 5 KW of electricity per hour; the average house uses 2 KW per day.

Although only three private systems exist in Ireland, the deregulation of the electricity sector and growing demand for power will strengthen the case for bioenergy. Such initiatives will protect the environment by processing farm and industrial waste into organic fertilisers, create renewable energy, heat and electricity from waste and create employment. Full roll-out would be an innovative sustainable energy project that would help to reduce CO2 emissions and facilitate our meeting our Kyoto targets.

I highlight the Camphill community project in Ballytobin, County Kilkenny. This is a residential therapeutic centre for children and adults with disabilities. A total of 90 people live in the community and they consume 150,000 KW of electricity and 500,000 KW hours of primary energy in heating. The community is committed to strong environmental policies, with an organic farm and gardens. The community also has an agriculturally-based anaerobic digestive plant producing biogas from farmyard waste that meets its energy requirements.

The biogas project is an exciting and innovative means of improving our environmental and energy profile. Government policy to support and expand existing ventures is essential to enable Ireland to get off the ground in the biogas enterprise. I ask the Minister to give every help to expand this environmentally-friendly energy source and establish a pilot scheme in every county. It would be of benefit to the entire country.

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