Ireland faces ‘energy crisis of famine proportions’
There has been much discussion and information and informed debate on how we meet Ireland’s future energy needs since oil and gas prices began to rocket.
Now the chairman of the Wood Energy Association, Waterford-based James Kennedy, says it’s time for action, not words.
“The issues and problems if we fail to get this right are of Irish Famine proportions for the economy and communities of Ireland. On the other hand, the opportunities and potential in job-creation, research and development, as well in improving Ireland’s global competitiveness, are immense.
“There are three main user-sectors in the energy market: transport; heat and electricity, but sadly we have concentrated almost totally on the needs of the electricity sector to date.
“Transport and heat account for 40% each of Ireland’s total energy bill, while electricity generation accounts for just 20%. That means that heat accounts for 40% of the annual Irish energy bill of €7 billion or to put it another way, heating Irish homes and workplaces costs €2.8bn a year. Most European countries, encouraged by Brussels, are very advanced in their development of renewable energy, with typical targets of 10% by 2010; 20% by 2020 and 50% by 2050.
“Some countries and regions are already ahead of these targets because they first set the target, took a serious stance on implementation and carefully measured the results.
“Upper Austria, with a population of 1.4 million people, has achieved its goal of 30% of energy needs supplied from renewable sources and is now going for a target of 60%. The Austrians set up a system of measuring the installed capacity and monitoring additional capacity as it became available.
“They have created 15,000 jobs in the renewable energy market and are leading the world in technology, as well as exports of solar equipment and heat-producing boilers.
“The most interesting point in this region is that heat from wood and other bio-mass crops such as willow, will play the leading role in reaching the targets for renewable energy generation, followed by wind, solar and other sources. This is also the view of the Brussels authorities.
“While it is technically possible to produce electricity from wood by using it as a peat substitute, however, given the progress made to date with wind generation, it is now appropriate to focus on using wood energy to heat buildings, including hospitals, work-places and offices as well as homes.
“For the past three years I have visited many sites in Europe where different applications of renewable energy are in everyday use.
“Harvesting of forest thinnings and growing other energy crops is so demonstrably suitable for the hard-pressed agri-sector in Ireland as it provides alternative sources of income from land and new uses for existing farm machinery,” he said.
The EU currently has a new draft directive in place on Renewable Energy Sources of Heat — RESH- which seeks to set mandatory targets for the generation of heat from renewables.
