Grass cuttings could be used to power homes

Cork County Council may use grass cuttings from verges and its unused land stock as biofuel to provide power to houses.

The council’s environment special purposes committee is to examine the green energy drive after Sinn Féin councillor Eoghan Jeffers said a project carried out in Lincolnshire, England, showed that using grass cuttings from that county’s 8,750km of roads provided enough electricity to power 4,500 homes a year and enough gas to power 1,100 homes.

Cork County Council has 12,600km of roads under its jurisdiction and has to cut verges on many of them during the summer.