New report from MaREI Centre shows how Climate Bill can be delivered

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A new report says a Net-Zero Energy System for Ireland is possible by 2050, it believes it is cost-effective and has the potential to create more than 50,000 jobs. Our Climate Neutral Future: Zeroby50 is published by MaREI, the SFI Research Centre for Energy, Climate and Marine, hosted by University College Cork, on behalf of Wind Energy Ireland.
The report is a call to action for the Government and for every level of Irish society. Minister for Environment, Climate Action and Communications Eamon Ryan TD welcomed the report: “We have set a national climate objective to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. In the coming months we will develop a new Climate Action Plan to set out how we will achieve this.

Paul Deane writer of the report comments in LinkedIN as follows :

“Low levels of emissions reduction from agriculture require much higher levels of mitigation from cars, homes, and electricity to meet the Plan for Government 51% emissions reduction ambition by 2030. Food production will remain the main use of land in Ireland, but greater innovation and diversification of land use is needed. The structure and size of our national herd is a fundamental driver of emissions and efficiency improvements are not enough to meet targets. We must support options that provide alternatives (not additions) to livestock farming for families in the most unprofitable sectors. Options such as sustainable and certified biogas, energy crops with low land-use change, carbon farming with verifiable carbon sequestration, ecotourism and biodiversity protection must be explored”

James Cogan from Ethanol Europe and overseeing IrBEA’s Transport Working Group commented on the report:

‘Renewable wind electricity is clearly central to Ireland’s energy future…’ but notes that ‘renewable electricity can only be used in place of electricity, and right now there is essentially zero electricity in Irish transport.  The progress of blending sustainable bioliquids in conjunction with the deployment of electric vehicles is essential to reducing emissions in this sector.  There are simply no scenarios under which electromobility will scale up quick enough for the 2030 targets.  Market-ready bioliquids and biogas will be needed at four times the current usage rate in transport”.

“I’d appeal to policy makers to consider three key factors:  The number of conventional cars on our roads is still growing steadily, meaning that cars represent as a hard a sector to decarbonise as heavy goods or aviation.  There will be no hiding from this.   Second, carbon savings are like paying your mortgage – the earlier you start the better. Ireland should introduce E10 petrol immediately (petrol with 10% bioethanol in it), cutting 100,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually on top of the 100,000 cut by the 5% bioethanol that’s been in our petrol for the last few years.  Most EU countries have made the move already, with Sweden being the most recent.  Finally, our regulators need to embrace crop biofuels, which are market ready, proven and super sustainable, so long as they are sourced responsibly (which means in Europe).  Ireland could use ten times more crop biofuels than it does today and it would be the surest path to sustainable transport that we could wish for.”

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The Irish Times says: https://www.irishtimes.com/business/energy-and-resources/report-shows-how-ireland-can-deliver-net-zero-energy-system-by-2050-1.4524135