Energy Crops have a future but government assistance needed

29 January, 2003

Every energy crisis of the past thirty years led to a surge of interest in fuel crops, which waned as soon as the queues disappeared from the filling stations. But in view of the problems currently facing both farming and the national economy at the moment, a more serious look at the potential of these crops is warranted stated Teagasc researcher Bernard Rice speaking at the National Tillage Crops Conference in Carlow Wed. January 29^th.

The conference was told that Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions are far exceeding our Kyoto limits with the agricultural sector as the biggest emitter, with changes required so as to ease the problem. Growing fuel crops to displace fossil fuel would reduce CO₂ emissions without any cutback in farm output according to Bernard Rice.

Given the market difficulties and falling profit margins facing the conventional farm enterprises, some diversification into other markets is at least worth exploring.

Unlike other neighbouring countries, Irish land could supply a significant part of our energy needs. At the extreme, the total farmed area could produce our total national energy requirement. A 10% substitution could be achieved with only slight decreases in current arable and livestock enterprises.

The most likely energy products would be rape-seed oil as a diesel substitute, ethanol from beet as a petrol substitute, and a range of crops for combustion to produce heat and electricity. Industries such as these are already up and running in other EU countries. The problem here has been that there have been few incentives to stimulate renewable energy production.

To allow a beginning to be made, Bernard Rice told the conference that two changes are needed immediately: a reduction or remission of road excise on biofuels and an increased price for electricity from biomass. Since the size of the biomass resource is limited and no exchequer costs are incurred until the renewable energy is produced, these measures could be introduced at very little cost or risk to the economy.

The full conference papers can be found in 2003 National Tillage Conference