Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the consideration of bioenergy and the willingness of the Minister to scrutinise these issues seriously. I have indicated my disposition towards focusing more on district energy and local energy co-operatives using a sustainable mix of energy-production technologies that will be more in tune with community interests and potentially generate local employment. Much of the emphasis has been on industrial wind turbines. How is it that although wind generation has expanded by 40%, it is being claimed that carbon dioxide emissions per kilowatt of power generated have increased? Perhaps the Minister will confirm whether this is true. Might it be because there are hidden environmental costs contributing to carbon dioxide emissions? This is the contention of many of the critics of industrial wind turbines. Are we taking into account the big emission cost of the expansion or beefing up of the transmission network?

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