Climate gives Ireland advantage in biofuel growth, says academic

IRELAND’S CLIMATE could deliver an advantage in producing significant amounts of biofuels made from non-food crops, a UCD academic has claimed.

Shanin Ali of the UCD school of biology and environmental science said yesterday this country’s ability to grow certain types of grasses, trees and other plants quickly gave it natural advantages in making biofuels which are sourced from non-food crops.

Giving the weekly Earth Systems Institute lecture in Dublin yesterday, Mr Ali said biofuels had been seen as the great hope for the reduction of green house gas emissions up to 2003.

But after that year doubts began to be expressed about the amount of food crops being used to make biofuels, and whether it was then unsustainable to make fuel from food, he stated.

Recent interest in the development of biofuels, particularly bio-ethanol, centred on the production of “cellulosic” bio-ethanol – the conversion of discarded plant material into a dense liquid fuel suitable for transport vehicles.

Currently however, the cost of cellulosic fuel was about $2.20 (€1.70) per gallon, compared to $1.20 (92 cent) for biofuel made in a conventional process from wheat.

Another difficulty was that fossil oils needed to be about $120 (€92) a barrel before biofuels were economically viable.

It would be about 10 to 15 years before the cost of the fossil fuels settled at or above that level, Mr Ali said.

Further challenges facing the sustainability of cellulosic bioethanol included the inclination of farm and forest owners to switch to fuel crops when the return was better than growing food.

While cellulosic bio-ethanol could be made from material grown on marginal land, it was difficult to stop land owners growing whatever crop they saw fit, Mr Ali said.

But he told the environmentalist Duncan Stewart that Ireland had a natural advantage ahead of other countries in its ability to grow the necessary crops relatively quickly on marginal land while water was not an issue.

Next week’s lecture is to be given by Dr Kevin McDonnell of the UCD school of agriculture, food science and veterinary medicine on the subject Food versus Fuels: An Irish perspective.