The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) has slammed a report which suggests converting the Moneypoint generation station from coal to biomass would solve Ireland's renewable energy issues.

The SEAI said the report is misinformed and risks creating false hopes.

The report, prepared by UK consultants BW Energy for the Rethink Pylons campaign group, argues that this one action would enable Ireland to meet its 2020 renewable energy targets at a single stroke. It also claims it would allow us to abandon our plans for investment in wind energy and transmission infrastructure.

The SEAI said: "That is not to say that biomass does not offer significant benefits for Ireland. It can and is already making a difference. Biomass is organic material used as energy – generating heat or electricity, or indeed fuel to power vehicles.

"Ireland's richest biomass resource is wood, sourced from the cultivation of high-yielding trees like willow and poplar, or from the thinnings and residues of forestry land, and also from other wood products such as boards and construction materials. We have a rich biomass resource in Ireland and, used right, it can bring great benefits to local communities across the country.

-- Advertisement --

"We at the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland want to see the sector grow rapidly, and we believe it can. SEAI's research shows that it has the potential to become a €200 million supply chain of local fuel within the next few years. This creates jobs – in growing, harvesting, transporting and using.

"Indeed, the conversion of Moneypoint to biomass has been considered a number of times over the years, including actual trials of small amounts of biomass in the station. However, the technical and economic challenges have proven far greater than some would have us believe.

"Would switching Moneypoint from coal to biomass help Ireland meet its climate and energy targets? Biomass is best used to generate heat because we can get twice the energy from the same amount of biomass rather than just turning it into electricity. People seem to forget that we have a target for renewable heat as well as one for renewable electricity. If we divert all our potential heat resources into electricity it will simply make meeting our other targets harder, if not impossible.

"And speaking of diverting all our resources, how much biomass would Moneypoint consume? The answer is that it would take far more than Ireland's entire biomass resource, that would require over 300,000 hectares of land – the equivalent of covering every square inch of Counties Wexford and Carlow with willow.

"Assuming this is unlikely, we would have to import very large amounts of biomass from different parts of the world. At what cost? It's very hard to say, prices are very volatile, resource availability is hard to predict, and so we would be exposing ourselves to a new degree of uncertain import dependence for our energy needs.

"Ireland is rich in clean energy resources of many kinds, and these are the resources of the future. There is no magic fix or no one winner energy source – we need them all. Wind and biomass both have a place in Ireland's energy future."

(CD/JP)