I invite Dr. Jerry Murphy, a man with a high reputation, to make a presentation. The EPA recommended we invite him. We thank him for travelling from Cork.
Energy Policy: Discussion with Dr. Jerry Murphy.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
Our research group has been examining bio-fuels for a number of years. I sit on the International Energy Agency bio-fuels task force. We meet three or four times a year to discuss bio-fuels worldwide. I am a lecturer in transport engineering, a civil engineer, and that is the mindset I bring rather than an enzyme or microbiology mindset.
From an engineering point of view, we have particular problems with peak oil. I received the following figures recently. At present we produce 83 million barrels per day. With the improved lifestyles of India and China the expected demand has been modelled at 120 million barrels a day in 2015. The head of Total has optimistically stated that we might produce 100 million barrels a day by 2015. We have an immediate short-term shortfall. When do we begin to ration and who gets the oil? This is a problem that will arise in the next ten years.
We will use three times as much transport fuel in 2010 as we did in 1990. Under the Kyoto Protocol we are allowed to increase it by 13% but our increase will be between 180-200%. Transport is out of control. Last year our emissions from electricity dropped and transport increased by 7% to 8%. Year on year, our transport fuel consumption is increasing.
Bio-fuels have been mooted as a solution. I am also an advocate of public transport. Considering the bio-fuels issue, rapeseed emerged early and it is the path of least resistance. One can grow it, press it and use the oil. We are quite concerned about it in the larger sense because one produces 1.2 tonnes of oil per hectare. The crop from one hectare of rapeseed is four tonnes, whereas 64 tonnes of silage can be produced from one hectare. This is a very low return and we see it as a sustainable, small-scale bio-fuel, but it cannot be the bio-fuel to meet our transport problems.
An issue with rapeseed is that it is a high input energy crop. One must plough the land, drive tractors up and down, put fertiliser on the land, and much energy goes into rapeseed. It can be grown only one year in five. If one grows it for consecutive years, a bug will populate the crop and destroy it. If the producer receives excise relief, it may be an economic fuel but it is a small-scale fuel.
One can compare it with palm oil. A student from Thailand works with us on this area. Some 5,000 litres of palm oil can be produced from a hectare compared with 1,300 from rapeseed, four times the return. Palm oil comes from a tree. One picks the fruitlets, squashes them and they produce oil. It is a low energy input crop so it has a far higher energy balance and, in effect, is a far more productive and sustainable fuel.
A Dutch programme followed people producing palm oil. They cut down rain forest and poor orangutans were clubbed over the head. Palm oil importation into the Netherlands was banned for a while. The IEA and EU state these countries are entitled to an industry and farms are certified. Indigenous biodiesel is not a runner on a large scale.
We then examined ethanol as the second fuel of choice. People typically consider biodiesel for diesel cars and ethanol for petrol cars. We visited a plant in Nörrkoping several years ago. The problem with ethanol is the energy balance as a great deal of energy is required in the process of making it. In northern Europe cereals such as wheat are used to make ethanol. Grain and ethanol are extremely different and the process requires the addition of a great deal of water. Four litres of water are added per litre of ethanol produced. A 150 million litre per annum ethanol plant will use 600 million litres of water. Recently, I read of proposals for an ethanol plant in Kenya. Concerns raised include that it will use a great deal of water in a country which does not have much water and which is the habitat of elephants and hippopotamuses.
Creating ethanol is a major process which requires a great deal of thermal demand and a large facility. After the large amount of water is added, the temperature is raised to 85° Celsius. This is followed by triple distillation to achieve the 99.7% alcohol required. This is not like beer and contains more energy than whiskey. It is pure alcohol. Since so much water is added a mash is left behind. All the water is then evaporated which also makes major thermal demands.
Recently, I attended a discussion in Rotterdam about sugar cane. Tropical climates produce the best bio-fuels if the process is done properly. We monitor bio-fuel in gigajoules, a unit of energy, rather than comparing a litre of ethanol to a litre of diesel. Diesel has 36 units of energy while ethanol has 21. We compare them by energy because we cannot compare them by volume. Wheat has a gross output of 66 gigajoules per hectare but because of the energy required in the process this is reduced to a net output of 25 gigajoules per hectare. In the UK, the amount of energy required to run a tractor up and down a field to fertilise it was measured and the figure was 21 units of energy.
The wheat to ethanol system leaves us with 4 gigajoules per hectare per annum. The EU will not accept a bio-fuel which does not reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 35% and so wheat ethanol cannot be used for targets. At present, wheat ethanol is not defined as a bio-fuel by the EU because the parasitic demand is too high if one plugs into the electricity grid and burns kerosene or natural gas as a heat source. It could be considered a bio-fuel if one burns wood chips as a heat source.
Brazil has vast swathes of land planted with sugar cane and a combine harvester will drive 1 km, turn around and drive another kilometre. Sugar cane is a low energy input crop. It grows, one cuts it down and this is repeated. The sugar cane residue, the bagasse, is used as a source of heat and power so electricity or kerosene are not used. Sugar cane has an extremely good footprint with 135 gross gigajoules of energy per hectare with 120 net gigajoules per hectare. Sugar cane is the best source of ethanol and it is sold at €0.50 per litre.
Several years ago, we purchased grains for approximately €100 per tonne and the price is now €180 per tonne. This has driven up the cost of ethanol considerably. The cheapest ethanol from grain is now approximately €0.82 per litre. In recent years, I visited a number of facilities which have now suspended operations because they cannot compete economically with Brazil. This is a problem in the ethanol industry.
We examined gaseous transport fuels. Most bus services throughout Europe run on compressed natural gas. One reason for its use is that it is the cleanest fuel. Diesel, for example, has many particulates which can be breathed into the lungs. I was asked by the Irish Cancer Society to a forum in Dublin because they are worried about a link between biodiesel and cancer. In terms of greenhouse gases, gas is half that of coal or oil when it is used for electricity.
In countries where gas is used for bus services, a switch to bio-gas or biomethane is being made. All of Sweden's buses run on gas. In Stockholm, the bus fleet runs on sewage sludge, in Linköping it runs on slaughter waste and in Norrköping it runs on distillers' grain from the alcohol industry. Lille also runs its buses on gas. I was in Florence last summer where buses are also run on gas, as they are in Linz in Austria. I was interested to learn Denver buses also run on gas.
A problem with gas here is that we do not have many service stations or cars which use it. We have been examining the starting point for having gas as a transport fuel. In the United States, the Honda Civic NGV is a gas car with a home-fill system. One plugs it into one's house and this overcame the service problem.
From where does Lille get its gas?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
Lille uses a combination of compressed natural gas and sewage sludge.
How is it treated?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
It is an anaerobic digestion process. The organic material is put in a tank and oxygen is removed.
Can we do this here?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
We can. We produce biogas in Dublin's waste water treatment plant and at the waste water treatment plant in Carrigrennan.
It can be done from slurry pits.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
Yes, it can be done from slurry pits on farms. The technology is being taken to the next step in Austria, Sweden and Germany where it is used as transport fuel. Austria has a proposal that all natural gas will be matched by 20% renewable gas. Biogas can be made from residues or from energy crops. It can also be made from grass, which is our particular area of interest.
Are we discussing methane?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
Yes, methane CH4.
What about liquid petroleum gas?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
LPG is different to compressed natural gas. Typically, it is a fossil fuel. We have not examined it. Natural gas coming from Kazakhstan or through Russia is approximately 98% methane.
Or from the Corrib field?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
Possibly.
I raise this because I noted the major decrease in the number of outlets providing LPG. A constituent raised the matter with me recently.
I apologise for the interruption.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
We started examining compressed natural gas because my background was in examining biomethane. One can put biodiesel in a diesel car and ethanol in a petrol car but what does one do with biomethane? Globally, we have seen an increase in the use of compressed natural gas, CNG. In Argentina, 1.5 million vehicles run on it, the figure in Pakistan is 1 million vehicles and in Italy 400,000.
We studied Sweden because much of its technology is very interesting. The first requirement is gas. If one produces biomethane and no one uses it, one goes bankrupt. In Sweden, natural gas only was used for the first three years and then biomethane was introduced. Sweden now sells more biomethane than gas and it is at the equivalent of 50 million litres of diesel. The number of vehicles run on biomethane is only 15,000 but it is the model we have examined.
Did Dr. Murphy state the vehicles are loaded up at home or at service stations?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
The solution in America was to fill it from one's house. One does not have to worry about the service station. One buys the car and the kit. The kit is fitted to one's garage and the gas comes from the house. Every night one plugs in one's car and fills it with gas, which makes one independent of a service station.
It is not bio-methane, though, is it?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
It would be predominantly compressed natural gas but the model they use in Austria is that the bio-methane goes into the gas grid, so the grid becomes the distribution system. We have quite a good gas grid here.
The gases can mix. Is that correct?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
It is the same thing, it is methane. One is fossil fuel methane and the other is methane made from slurry or slaughter waste. We can make methane and call it bio-methane, whereas natural gas is methane, which we consider a fossil fuel laid down many millions of years ago.
It is recycled.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
Yes.
Is Dr. Murphy saying that every slurry pit owned by a large farmer could feed into the natural gas grid?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
I was in Austria last week, where they have a gas chromatograph on the outlet, so if any of one's parameters fail, a valve goes and one is off the grid. This means that the natural gas grid does not allow any low-grade gas to enter the grid. The gas must be 98% methane, with no hydrogen sulphide or water.
Is that possible and affordable in the near future?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
It is happening now.
In the Irish scenario.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
No, not in Ireland. It is happening in Austria, Sweden, Germany and so forth.
What is the barrier to it happening here?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
The car fleet. If a farmer or developer decides to make bio-methane, there is no one to use it at present. That is the difficulty. The Swedes opted to use it for their bus services, giving very clean air quality in cities. The majority of European capital cities run their buses on gas.
We could too, if we got Dublin Bus to change—
Dr. Jerry Murphy
Yes. I heard that Dublin Bus is buying 200 buses, which should be gas buses.
Would Dr. Murphy mind if we ask questions as we go along? This is very interesting.
It is extremely interesting.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
I have some case studies at the end of my presentation, which will answer some of the questions being raised.
Dr. Murphy should proceed in that case and we will ask questions at the end.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
The slide shows Sweden, which is one of the countries which is only developing in this area. The service stations are predominantly on the west coast, where the gas line is located. There are now 109 fuelling stations in Sweden. Compressed natural gas is the cheapest transport fuel. In Austria, they call it Putin's gas. We buy it at about 25 cent per metre cubed, which is the equivalent of 25 cent per litre of diesel. A metre cubed of natural gas releases the same energy as a litre of diesel. Because of factors such as transport and compression, it is sold in Austria for 65 cent per metre cubed, which is the same as 65 cent for a litre of diesel. They essentially have half-price transport fuel in Austria.
Bio-methane cannot compare with compressed natural gas. The view in Austria is that the gas should be a blend, of which 20% is bio-methane. Therefore, the gas grid, which sells the gas, must source a certain percentage of quantity of renewable gas. They see it as the cheapest and cleanest fossil fuel, with the highest blend. Typically, at the moment, ethanol is 5% with petrol and bio-diesel is 5% with diesel. That is the strategy. At the moment, compressed natural gas is 60% of the cost of diesel.
Does that include Government taxes?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
I have a document, with which I can furnish the committee, which shows that excise is not charged on gas as a propellant and VAT is at 13.5%. We verified this with the Revenue Commissioners by e-mail. LPG also has a very low excise duty.
The EU has targets for compressed natural gas. Initially, because it was looking at a target of 20% bio-fuel, the land take was too high, so now it has opted for 10% bio-fuel and 10% compressed natural gas by 2020. The barriers to gas, which is something we have been examining, are various. A metre cubed of gas is 1,000 litres. One has the same energy in 1,000 litres of gas as one does in a litre of diesel. The ratio is even worse for hydrogen. One needs 3,000 times the volume of hydrogen to compare with diesel, so one must compress. We compress, typically, to 250 bar, so therefore, we need four times the storage capacity. This is a barrier. If one has a car running on gas as opposed to diesel, one either goes to the service station four times more often — hence the home-fill system in the US — or one has a tank which is four times bigger than normal. One of the reasons that gas-fuelled buses have taken off is that the gas is put in the roof space. Some 200 metres cubed of natural gas will power a bus for 400 km. It is compressed to a metre cubed. The buses have a tank overhead, which is standard.
Another barrier is that the service stations are expensive because one needs a compressor. It is not liquid fuel and a compressor is essential. One cannot open a service station with only three or four cars going by. One needs a captive fleet. We are currently working on a project with Cork City Council, where we will convert a large number of fleets and we hope to have a bio-methane service station in the next few years. The lack of infrastructure is a key problem. If one wants to make bio-methane, one must have some vehicles to use it. We do not have any vehicles in Ireland running on natural gas. We would need a fleet of cars.
In Stockholm, for example, taxis go to the top of the queue if they run on gas. Parking is free in the city for cars which run on gas.
Wow.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
A number of service stations opened and when people realised they could get a free parking space in the middle of the equivalent of O'Connell Street, they converted to gas cars. Now, five in six taxis in Stockholm run on bio-methane.
Are there health and safety concerns with the use of gas? In an impact crash, for example, would there be a danger of explosion? Gas, by nature, is explosive.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
It is safer.
It is safer.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
Yes. Perhaps the Deputy has seen the film "Crash", where there is a pool of petrol on the ground and the flames are approaching the guy in the car. Petrol and diesel are liquids that burn. Bio-methane cars have a reinforced tank. They have been crash tested and are much safer than regular cars. Typically—
What of the explosion impact?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
The tanks are vessels under pressure. They have been crash tested. The tests show that gas is safer than liquid. If the tank is pierced, the gas escapes, because it is compressed to 250 bar. It does not trickle back towards the car and driver. The tank has been designed with crashes in mind.
In terms of energy crops, we have been studying grass. In Ireland, we have 4 million hectares of pasture. We have only 400,000 hectares of arable land. In short, 9% of land is under cereal, while 91% is under grass, in one form or another. Grass is a low energy input crop. It grows, one cuts it, it grows, one cuts it, and so on. Grass also absorbs carbon dioxide and tends to sequester it in the soil. When one cuts the grass, carbon is admitted to the soil. A study done by Professor Tillman, published in Nature, shows that grass is the best feed stock. It sequesters carbon and is a CO2 negative crop.
We have been studying grass in terms of the return per hectare. We can obtain the equivalent of 5,000 litres of petrol, per hectare, per annum, or 4,000 litres of diesel, given that diesel is stronger than petrol. I was in Jugendorf last week to view a small-scale system, where four farmers got together and cut silage. They have a small hut, which is the superstructure, with two tanks underground. They have a service station at the door of their garage and are selling fuel. They gave up dairy farming and silage production and are now making fuel.
How long does it take, from cutting the grass, to putting it into a car?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
Once you start, you start production. They cut their silage, store it on site and put it into the tank. Immediately, gas is released.
How long does it take for it to ferment?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
The size of the tanks is based on the fact that Austria suffers from very cold winters, during which time they cannot spread the digestate which comes out the other side. Therefore, the tanks are sized at about three months. They hold approximately three months' volume, but the gas is continuous. It is always there. They have gas all of the time. The local gas supplier in Salzburg monitors their gas—
Can I ask about the financial return from a farming point of view? How does it compare to rearing cattle?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
They are making more money from this than they were from dairy farming.
Does Dr. Murphy know the return per acre or per hectare?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
I do not have those figure with me but typically, silage would yield €18 per tonne but they are making more money from the silage going into the—
Dr. Murphy said one can obtain 4,000 litres of diesel per hectare per annum. Is that correct?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
Yes, the equivalent of 4,000 litres.
What does one do with the residue of the grass?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
The residue is sold. It is clean. It is not slurry, it is grass. Clean grass goes into a digester, producing clean digestate.
It is not fermented.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
It is digested.
What form does the residue take, after the digestion process?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
Typically, silage in Ireland is 20% solids. In Austria, it is 40%, so it is almost a hay. The solids are converted to gas and the liquid passes through. It is a green slurry but it is a fantastic fertiliser and can go back on the land from whence it came.
Is it a particular type of grass?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
No, this is grazed sward.
It is haylage, in effect.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
It is not miscanthus.
It is ordinary rye grass dried to a haylage-type texture.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
Ideally a digestion process takes place at between 12% and 20%. The bugs need a solution.
It is almost hay.
Is there a research site in Ireland?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
We have made a proposal in the lifetime laboratory in Cork which we hope to outline next Tuesday. We have lined up a developer and a transport user.
What is the timescale for this type of development?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
I do not know.
Has any initiative been taken in this field?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
We have been publicising this for the past two years. A number of farmers have approached me individually but I have not met representatives of the IFA.
It is important to note that we have asked the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to discuss the broader issue of climate change with us. This is one area which will be very productive in that context.
The obvious question is whether Teagasc has been approached.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
I conduct research on two projects with partners from Teagasc. The EPA has funded research I am conducting with Teagasc in County Wexford on grass as a transport fuel and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food funds a project in Grange which is being conducted with Teagasc and Queen's University Belfast. I am a civil engineer and like to see things being built, so I hope to establish a project involving demonstration vehicles.
The driving force for this was rapeseed. There is a belief that 1% of all land is required to produce 1% of transport fuel. When we calculated the numbers, the 5.75% biofuels directive for 2010 requires 5.7% of land to be planted with rapeseed. When Europe speaks about biofuel, therefore, it refers to rapeseed. What we feel is more important is that rapeseed requires good arable land whereas only 9% of our land is arable. We would have to stop growing wheat or barley and plant 63% of arable land with rapeseed to meet the biofuels directive. Rapeseed is a one in five crop, so we would need 315% of arable land if rapeseed is the sole means of meeting the directive.
It cannot be planted as extensively in any case because it is a break crop.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
With silage, 1.6% of land would bring us to 5.75%, so it becomes much better. We considered Dublin Bus because our view is that a captive fleet is necessary. The average bus in Dublin uses 27,000 litres of diesel, which we equated to the various biofuels. In rapeseed, 24 ha or 65 acres would be required to run one bus and because it is a one in five crop, the developer would have to contract 120 ha or 250 acres. That is the reason we do not think rapeseed is feasible. However, only 6.5 ha of silage is needed to run a bus. Grass grows every year, so the developer only needs to contract 6.5 ha to the biofuel facility. There is great potential for grass, therefore.
We have been working with Cork City Council and have spoken with Michael O'Brien regarding, for example, 89 buses in Cork. We could provide fuel for those buses with 576 ha. We have 300 ha of parkland which is cut and brought to landfill sites, so we are looking at a project in which the landfill site will be remediated and have given advice on the type of grass to plant. We hope that the grass cut on the landfill site will go into a digester to produce gas for vehicles. Cork City Council has indicated it will purchase some gas powered vehicles if this project proceeds. The council is excited about it because it already uses landfill gas to make CHP and now it can cut the grass on top to make transport fuel. Cork also has a green waste composting facility.
On the dirty side of the issue, we slaughter more pigs and cattle per year than the number of people living in the country. I was a vegetarian for ten years after working in abbatoirs. The matter in these animals' stomachs is dominated by belly grass, with each paunch typically containing 120 kg. We are also investigating possible uses for the organic fraction of municipal solid waste. A strategy on biodegrading has been developed which uses composting. We could make transport fuel from these materials. At present, belly grass is ploughed into arable land but our Swedish neighbours would not see that as good practice.
Is anything wrong with the practice?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
Silage effluent has 120,000 mg biochemical oxygen demand per litre, which is 200 times more polluting than sewage.
We should not be doing it, therefore.
It is good for the land. It contains ingredients such as nitrogen and phosphates.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
It could be digested and pasteurised and still be beneficial. The gas would be extracted before being ploughed into the land. It has already been liquified in the paunch so it is a lovely feedstock for bacteria. A proposal has been made in Cork for an 80,000 tonne per annum composting facility. Even ignoring pig slurry, we could use those wastes to meet 2% of our transport fuel in 2010. Our concept is that we should have a bio-CNG, that is, 20% bio-methane and 80% gas. That 2% could easily become 10%, which means 10% of our vehicles could run on waste without going near the land to substitute cereals or sugar beet. We would not be taking water from a delicate ecosystem by importing fuel from Indonesia or Kenya. The fuels would be carbon negative because if belly grass is put on the land we estimate that 20% of it ferments to produce methane, which has a global warming potential of 21. However, if it is put into a closed container and heated to 35° Celsius, all the methane is captured and combusted to CO2 which has a global warming potential of 1. It also substitutes for diesel and petrol.
Has this been tried elsewhere?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
In Linköping, Sweden, 47,000 tonnes of belly grass and 7,000 tonnes of pig slurry are used. What we would consider a barrier to the industry is the need for co-operation among a large number of stakeholders. The abattoir, the city council and the bus service came together on the Linköping project. Integrated thinking is required rather than one party deciding to purchase buses and another dealing with waste problems. When we visited the facility we were told that while we may congratulate ourselves for stopping smoking in pubs, our children still encounter diesel particulates at face level when they walk the streets. Linköping claims to have removed smoke from the streets. The gas does not contain particulates. It is a clean fuel that makes pure methane.
What type of area is Linköping?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
This facility is situated next to the bus depot and about 2 km outside the city of Linköping, which has a population of 130,000. It is equivalent to the centre of Cork without the suburbs. It is a compact city.
Are there no odours?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
No. The truck reverses into a building sealed to sub-atmospheric pressure. Any air would blow in and all the containers are sealed. They are dumped into a little pit that takes them into the digester and the fumes are treated so there is no smell around that facility. I have spoken to members of the Irish abattoir industry and they say most facilities are of a high standard because of the EPA. People no longer dump slaughter waste out in the yard.
Would there be rotting slaughter waste there?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
Predominantly belly grass and intestinal content is brought to this facility.
Are there definitely no carcasses?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
It does not deal with carcasses. Some blood is pumped directly from the abattoir. This is pasteurised at 70° Celsius for an hour. It goes on the land and is good for it, but there are no pathogens left and one has lots of transport fuel.
Is that an issue for the abattoir industry, to separate the stomach contents from the carcass?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
It already does. Members of the industry say disposing of belly grass costs them approximately €30 per tonne because they take it to the farmer and plough it into the land. They give advice on NPK and fertiliser and help the farmer. They save €30 per tonne by not giving it to a farmer.
It is so interesting.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
The gas that comes off the top is typically methane and carbon dioxide, so one has to take off the carbon dioxide, which is very soluble. They compress them for storage in tanks at 200 bar. We have 65 buses, ten waste collection lorries, 600 cars and a train. On this slide members can see the little gas containers slotted up on the engine of the train, which runs on grass. The next slide shows a facility in Brecht that digests 50,000 tonnes of rubbish, equivalent to 50,000 people's rubbish. They use the bio-gas for electricity. We do not see composting as a good way to deal with rubbish when one can make fuel from it.
Can one literally put rubbish trucks into a big tank and let it rot or treat it?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
The tank would have a retention time of approximately 30 days so the tank is 30 times bigger than the daily volume. There is no oxygen. There is a small amount of mixing. It just rots and produces—
Could we do that immediately? Are there no barriers?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
There are no barriers. This is what we have been examining. The technology is there. Companies all across Europe are doing it. There are cars that run on gas. There is no barrier bar the developer.
The development must cost a lot. The outlay to build that plant must be high.
That is the same with any plant on any scale.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
Compared with an ethanol plant, where one has to add four times the quantity of water as one will produce in ethanol and heat it to 85° Celsius, perform triple distillation and evaporate a big slurry mash, the energy required is low.
It sounds like a great alternative to incineration for municipal solid waste.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
One would reduce the volumes greatly.
Is it appropriate as a replacement for peat or coal in energy generation plants or is it more suitable for transportation?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
Traditionally, bio-gas was used to make electricity but the economics are such that one gets two kilowatt hours of electricity per metre cubed of gas, so one gets over twice the return as a transport fuel as one gets as a source of electricity in Ireland. If a kilowatt hour of electricity costs 12 cent and a metre cubed of gas generates two kilowatt hours, that is 24 cent. However, the metre cubed of gas displaces 0.6 of a litre of petrol, which costs approximately 60 cent.
Maybe we should examine electric vehicles that would be charged at night and would produce no emissions during the day versus using bio-gas to drive them because of the complications of refuelling as opposed to plugging in one's vehicle at home.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
More energy is used in transport than in electricity. If one wants one's electricity grid to power one's car fleet, there is the night time savings issue, but there is more energy in transport. We would have to double our electricity supply to power transport.
It is more manageable because there are economies of scale rather than putting gas into every vehicle in the country.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
If one fuels the bus fleet with gas, one would have clean air in the city. If Dublin is going to burn diesel in the buses, a little child coming out of the pub with his or her father gets particulates in the face. Gas is a clean fuel. These buses are in many European city centres. The developer is important. It is said that change comes from the suit, not from the sandal. We have been examining this for a while and my biggest issue is that I need a developer.
Did Dr. Murphy get one?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
There is a project under way, I have a developer who is interested in the idea and we hope to do something in Cork.
Clearly there is money to be made in it.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
There is. If one has large enough scale, compressed natural gas is the cheapest fuel. The problem with beginning is that to build a service station will cost perhaps €400,000 because there is a gas compressor. If one has two buses, that is not feasible. I have been examining these problems. In Stockholm, Lille and Florence they bought approximately 30 buses, so one station services 30 buses. When one annualises all the costs one has a cheap fuel. It is difficult to begin because if one builds a €400,000 service station for two buses, one will not make money. I have been examining how I can make a developer do this.
The Minister could direct Dublin Bus to make new buses gas buses.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
The pen is mightier than the sword. If somebody said the next 200 buses for Dublin, that are in the process of being ordered, had to be gas buses, that would create a big fleet. We could see a bio-methane plant in Tipperary putting the methane in the grid and Dublin Bus taking gas from the gas grid.
If I were the Minister for Transport and decided the buses were to be gas buses, how quickly could the gas be in production for them?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
The gas is there. If one brought a bus into Dublin tomorrow, one could take gas from the grid and run it. That is always our issue. One needs the gas buses first. Then a developer has a market and can make bio-methane and put it in the grid. With no market they will not do it.
Dublin Bus should buy gas buses and the rest would follow.
What is the name of the task force of which Dr Murphy is a member?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
It is the International Energy Agency task No. 39. There is one representative from each country and we meet and discuss—
What is Dr. Murphy's input in the Department of Transport here? He makes extremely interesting points and it seems to me and everybody else that decisions by the Minister for Transport should take into account what he says. I did not get that impression when the Minister was with us a couple of weeks ago. I am not clear on Dr. Murphy's role in advising the Government. Has he any role in that or is he on the outside coming up with the good ideas?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
I am at this committee, and that was one of the reasons I wanted to be here. We have written newspaper articles and contacted various people. I have not made any contact with the Minister and have not had any input.
I would have thought the Minister would have included Dr. Murphy, rather than the other way around. That has not happened.
That is a role this committee can pursue. If we are convinced, we can ask the Department of Transport to examine this and report back to us.
The Minister should look at his car too.
I know.
I have several questions but I am conscious the presentation is not finished.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
There is one slide left. In this we see bio-compressed natural gas initially as a way of using land most efficiently, using waste material to make transport fuel, of having the cleanest air quality in our streets, but we need a large captive fleet. Slaughter waste and MSW are free feedstocks and one may even get a fee for them. We have much parkland for grass and the project we hope to put forward in Cork involves parkland grass.
We can make biomethane at approximately 66 cent per cubic metre compressed, according to the Swedes, or 66 cent per litre of diesel. Various taxes would be attached, and this assumes a large plant running well and a fleet to take it. Clearly it will not be made for that price starting off because all the gas might not be sold. Typically, there is no land associated with this and there is no diversion of feedstock. Currently there is no excise duty on gas as a propellant.
Our use of transport fuel has gone up by a factor of nearly three over 1990, although it was meant to increase by only 13.5%. We need more buses on streets. I was in Rome a few weeks ago, where three buses can arrive at the same time. There are approximately 20,000 people in UCC and a bus arrives there every quarter hour. That bus, if full with 70 people, brings in 280 in an hour with 20,000 going to the university at peak time. We should have buses every five minutes.
Bus Rapid Transport looks like a Luas and is sleek, taking 220 people. Cork city is proposing introducing such a system after 2010. They should be run on gas, as the engine is not specified, only the chassis. The system costs about €1 million and it could run with a gas engine very easily.
One of the reasons I am here is that we would like to influence policy, as the pen is mightier than the sword. The Minister for Transport or those people running Cork's buses could decide the system will use gas in its engines. For example, all the waste collection lorries in Stockholm are privatised and run on gas, as the contract specified that a waste treatment collection would be provided that runs on gas. If somebody decreed the vehicle has to run on gas, it can be privatised.
People have said to me Sweden is socialist but many of the services in Sweden are privatised, coming from a contract. If any of the members have influence, they should remember gas with regard to buses or Government vehicles. We can use grass, the best feedstock for Ireland.
That was fascinating. I am sure there will be many questions so I will ask mine later. I will allow anybody who has not yet contributed to ask questions.
I must leave but I will try to track Dr. Murphy down in Cork and have another conversation with him.
Cork will be a glorious place according to that presentation.
That is where it is all happening.
It is all happening in Cork.
I am glad to hear it.
Does the Deputy have a quick question?
I will come back as I have many questions.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
We have a presentation in the Lifetime Lab on Tuesday if the Deputy is around and not in Dublin on Dáil duty.
I will be in Dublin but I will look into it.
This has been a very interesting presentation, which has added to our knowledge. I will deal selectively with the presentation. It seems biocompressed natural gas is a very clean fuel, which has implications for air quality and the health of the population, particularly in urban areas. It appears a vast range of sources can be used to generate this fuel from municipal solid waste to slaughterhouse waste to parkland grass clippings, many of which are not being used for fuel generation at the moment.
The gas, methane, seems to the be the same as is present in a fossil fuel gas coming from President Putin's Russia, as was stated in the presentation, or the Corrib. Am I correct in thinking liquid petroleum gas is the same substance, which had, in a sense, its moment of glory approximately ten years ago when quite a few taxis in Dublin and a fair amount of private cars used LPG and an existing car could be converted to it?
The LPG network was based on large tanks in the petrol station rather than being tapped into the national gas network. Is that correct?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
Putting 200 cu. m. of gas into a bus in five minutes would need a very big compressor. We still suggest that we would have a smaller compressor operating most of the time that would fill up a series of tanks. The tanks would be at 300 bar. When the bus is connected to the tanks — typically the tanks are compartmentalised — the tanks would hold the compressed gas and that would reduce the size of the compressor.
A barrier to this is that it is not a liquid fuel that is just pumped, there is a compressor. A smaller compressor operating throughout the day and night would fill tanks and the bus would sit next to the tanks.
A certain amount of energy is going into the compression but nothing like the distillation process for ethanol and other fuels.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
We have done the numbers. The digestion plant operates at 35° Celsius, which is a small amount of heat. Most of the energy is required in the compression. It is still only 10% or 15% of the energy value of fuel used in compressing the gas. With ethanol, we are using 65% of the energy of the ethanol in all the stages in the plant.
I also find it interesting that it seems to follow a general theme in renewable energy that we have seen. If we can allow the micro-generators into a grid, whether gas or electricity, we would provide greater independence from the producers elsewhere, such as Russia and the Middle East. It allows us to feed in Irish energy to the grid and give us not only energy security but a viable future for both energy crops and making better use of our waste in Ireland.
The most recent information I have seen seems to imply it was almost a fool's errand to produce many other biocrops. This seems to give significant hope.
The photographs of the plant in Sweden brought home the idea that the grass can be grown and digested, leaving a fuel that is clean and relatively cheap to produce.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
It is similar to wind in that with wind there is a turbine that feeds into the electricity network, which could be used in Dublin. We would see a system where farmers not happy with their current practice could have an easier lifestyle if silage is cut three times a year and made into gas. It could then go into the gas grid. The slaughter industry and MSW could be involved. There can be a series of people producing biomethane that meets the national gas grid standard. The gas grid would be the distribution system.
How would it affect crop production, the feeding of cattle, etc.? What percentage of our land would be used?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
We would always think the cheapest bio-fuel will be from waste products. After that we look at parkland grass, which is relatively cheap, and then we look to the farmer, where there could be a charge of €18 per tonne of silage. Some 91% of our land is under grass, a large quantity. A certain amount of agricultural or pasture lands are in fallow so we could hit a good portion of our transport fuel before there would be a conflict between food and fuel.
The EU and IEA are very concerned about the food-fuel conflict. We probably jumped in too fast to the first generation of bio-fuels. People thought they were marvellous but nobody realised they would double the price of our grains in two years because of the demand. A large ethanol plant was commissioned in Austria which was to employ 120 people but it is now suspended because they cannot make cheap ethanol as a result of the way grain prices have gone. A certain amount of stocktaking has taken place worldwide, in the EU and in the International Energy Agency, IEA, on first generation bio-fuels. I do not think it is a good time to enter the ethanol industry in Ireland.
It is fascinating to listen to Dr. Murphy and a new aspect to this matter that has been under our noses is grass. If a bus can be powered by grass, then I presume the power output it offers is sufficient to drive a large vehicle or machine. Regarding the agriculture industry fleet, one can bring it to a tank the way one can bring gas to a person who is not on the grid so the agriculture industry seems a good target group to focus on.
Dr. Murphy mentioned that grass is somewhat seasonal and cannot be harvested from November to March, which raises a storage issue. Are the blends of fuels that can provide methane compatible with slaughter waste storage and municipal organic waste storage? When grass is not available, livestock are kept in slatted sheds but I have often queried the potential for harvesting methane from such a storage tank. I know the man in Wexford, an engineer, who produces Carrigbyrne cheese and he has an anaerobic digester that does everything shown in the diagram. Instead of piping it, is it possible to collect it on the farm in the off-season for grass? In this way it could be brought in, scrubbed and mixed into the system, with credit given. I presume the blend is all right.
Dr. Murphy mentioned first generation bio-crops but what of second generation bio-crops for either bio-diesel, ethanol, petrol or gas? The second generation bio-crops do not interfere with the food chain as much as the first generation.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
I will answer the Deputy's questions in order. The first, second and third cuts of grass are stored in silos and when I visited Austria last week, there was still silage left. The annual production is of sufficient size to keep the gas plant going.
I am very interested in the area of development at the moment and it is preferable to tell a community that one seeks to put grass in a digester to create transport fuel rather than slaughter waste. I am nervous because many waste management planning applications in Ireland endure problems. We are anxious to market grass as a clean source of fuel with no pathogens.
Regarding second generation bio-fuels, I sit on a committee and people make presentations to it, just as I am making to this committee today. The second generation diesel sun fuel in Germany is funded by Volkswagen and Shell and is made from wood. They are growing and examining miscanthus and elephant grass; with five tonnes of wood, they can make one tonne of diesel. I am slightly worried that the developer proposed to plant vast quantities of miscanthus in Germany to make diesel. The proposal is still at the development stage and has not been finalised, but in eight years they expect to sell renewable diesel. I worry about miscanthus being grown on the scale this man sought because it requires arable land although it is not a food. If we want to grow it, we must take up wheat and I have qualms about that.
Wood thinnings are also being examined and that could be quite good but the individual in Germany was seeking to grow miscanthus on arable land to produce diesel. We looked at the energy balance and found it was not as good as grass but the developer in Germany said he is targeting the aviation industry and that one would not put gas on a plane because the volume is four times bigger, meaning the journey will be four times shorter.
His product is geared towards a second generation diesel to be used by the aviation industry so I think many second generation fuels will have markets. A project in Denmark involves making ethanol from grass. They have a closed cycle and Brigitte, a colleague of mine there, has enzymes she has patented; she can make ethanol from hemicellulosic materials including straw, wood and grass, which is her feed stock also. She can make ethanol and from the residues make gas so she will have two products, ethanol and bio-methane. There is a fantastic energy balance because she does not use electricity and she does not use heat.
Is that still at research level or is it commercially available?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
There are demonstration plants for sun fuel and second generation ethanol that are big enough to be commercial, but at the moment they are more interested in ensuring the quality of the product. The sun fuel plant cost €150 million and is producing lots of diesel that is not for sale. Volkswagen and Shell are playing with it to see whether it is economical and the process can be refined. The developers feel sun fuel will be on the market in eight years but it is not yet produced in Ireland. Second generation bio-fuels such as second generation diesel and second generation ethanol are ten years away, in my opinion, and will be available first in the countries that developed them. It will probably be 12 or 13 years before they are available in Ireland.
I apologise for not being here at the beginning of the meeting — I was trying to get someone off the phone and I must be nice to people these days.
This discussion has been most interesting and I do not remember who mentioned Dr. Murphy previously, perhaps a representative of the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, but we were all very keen to invite him to address the committee. The Environmental Research Institute in University College Cork, UCC, is an entire department.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
The Environmental Research Institute was initially a virtual institute but we now have a building that was opened a year and a half ago. We have microbiologists, plant scientists, chemists, organic chemists and engineers and, within that group, if, for example, I need someone to help me with microbiology, Dr. Alan Dobson can do so. We entered a project for the EU's 7th Framework Programme for Science and Research, FP7, and came second. It involved plant science specialists and we sought to develop a type of grass with a higher sugar content. In the research institute, we can investigate whether there is a bacteria that will give more gas and we can digest different grasses to see which is best.
Is Dr. Murphy's institute dealing with other research institutes around the country to ensure information is shared and combined?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
Yes, a lot of the work is done in conjunction with Teagasc. There is a Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food project involving Queen's University, Teagasc and our institute that is seeking a fibre in grass that can be used for insulation. We will then look at what is left for bio-gas. Another project involving the EPA and Teagasc is seeking to document the best way for grass to be used as a bio-fuel.
We are funded by national bodies and engage in collaborative research so others are involved in this area, particularly Teagasc.
I want to ask about the relationship with Cork County Council because it sounds like the institute has a lot to offer. If I was running a county council, I would be very interested in talking to Dr. Murphy because he may help solve municipal waste problems, never mind the ordinary waste that is generated. The matter of the fleet is also interesting because, presumably, bin trucks can also be fuelled. How is the institute's relationship with Cork County Council? Buses in Cork ran on oil.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
It is Cork City Council, in which my contact is Michael O'Brien. Typically, it has about 20 vehicles running on pure plant oil. It has also done a lot of work on landfill gas. It has been very proactive. It would say it had already met the bio-fuels directive within its fleet, in which there are around 300 vehicles. Michael O'Brien has been very proactive and it has been great to have an enlightened city council at our doorstep. The Lifetime Lab is directly across from the Environmental Research Institute and UCC helps to finance it, so there is a strong relationship there. What we needed all along was a developer and hopefully we have one now.
When Dr. Murphy uses the term "developer", does he mean in a private capacity?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
Yes. This person will find money to build digesters or service stations. I cannot use the university budget to build a compressor.
It is a classic example of how the city council could work with the developer and the ERI to solve their mutual problems.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
This is at proposal stage. We have spoken with the city council and we need to apply for planning permission. We will be outlining the project next Tuesday in the Lifetime Lab in Cork.
My final question is on how digesters actually work. If I were a large farmer, would I run a digester all on my own? I was interested in Deputy Doyle's point about seasonality. I am afraid I do not understand agriculture completely as I am not that familiar with it. All the grass grows at the same time, so it must be cut at the same time. Therefore, will stores be low in midwinter? Have I enough capacity alone or do I need to unite with other farmers? How many of these units would Dr. Murphy envisage? Would there be one every 20 miles?
My final point is with regard to connections to the grid. I am not talking about Eirgrid—
Dr. Jerry Murphy
The Senator is referring to Bord Gáis.
Yes. Would Bord Gáis complain about this? Eirgrid caused problems for wind projects by saying it did not want so many connections to the grid
If I went to the Minister for Transport and asked him why he does not insist Dublin Bus buys gas buses, he would give me an answer I would take to be true, but the ERI does not see a reason it should not do so. Is it a lot more expensive? Will Dublin Bus refuse to buy them because they are, for example, 50% more expensive? Does Dr. Murphy have any idea why Dublin Bus might not want to do this? Forget the Minister — why does Dublin Bus not want to do this itself?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
One of the major reasons is change. This is a new fleet and the mechanics are not used to the machines. In Cork in the past, a local system was run by Bord Gáis whereby it converted its own vehicles, but the mechanics found it difficult. My point of view is that the vehicles should be bought new. They are readily available. All across Sweden there are gas-run Scania trucks and buses. There are millions of these vehicles across the world. They are on production lines. They should be bought new. Bord Gáis is also funding research so it is happy to consider gas as a transport fuel. It represents another partner in the process which includes the city council and a developer. We hope something will come of it.
With regard to the Deputy's question about digesters, what tends to happen is that different countries do things in different ways. In Austria and south Germany, it is done at farm level. Farmers come together with typically 60 ha. At the last project we visited, three farmers had come together and built one digester between them with the advice of a local engineer. There may be more of a co-op approach in these countries. In Sweden, they tend to go for large projects. Sweden has about 20 very large digesters, while Austria has 350 farm-scale digesters.
So a farmer might be travelling 50 km to deposit his waste?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
There are 350 bio-gas plants in Austria. For example, in Eugendorf, where we were two weeks ago, all the fields around the plant were silage. The digester took in 70 ha. of the surrounding land. The maximum distance was about 5 km. It is a question of sustainability. As an idealist who lives in a rural community near Ballyfeard, I would love to be able to go to Ballyfeard and get my gas from grass. In Eugendorf there was a service station at the gate, so it is possible to buy one's gas from fields near one's house. It is a lovely idea in terms of sustainability, but it can also be a large-scale project using, for example, slaughter waste. Bioverda has applied for planning permission for two large biogas facilities. A Bioverda-type system could treat 200,000 tonnes of waste and put the resulting gas in the grid. This could then be used by buses in Cork, Galway or Dublin. Thus, both large-scale and small-scale projects are possible.
I thank Dr. Murphy for a thought-provoking presentation. It was very interesting. Let us consider this from a political point of view. There is a Cabinet sub-committee which deals with climate change. We are an Oireachtas committee dealing with the same thing. The Government programme states that there must be a 3% reduction in carbon emissions each year. There is, on paper at least, a massive focus on climate change. Other than in the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, I do not get the impression that things have changed. Dr. Murphy used the example of wind, which rings true to me. Wind and grass are indigenous and plentiful. It is what we are. After a long period in which wind energy was treated quite badly, there is now a focus on generating more electricity from wind. The Minister says we can become the world champion in this area, and I agree with him. However, there is nothing I can grasp in the areas of transport or agriculture that is parallel to that approach. Yet Dr. Murphy has come in here and pointed out areas of potential.
I regret that the Minister for Transport came here last week as it would have been better for him to come next week. The obvious question is why does he not have, at the very least, an advisory body in this area to start making informed decisions and to get a grasp on finances. The same goes for agriculture. I do not know whether the ERI has any relationship with the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
The Department was involved in a lot of my research. I take my hat off to the research stimulus fund.
I am delighted to hear that. However, I am thinking about how that could feed back into public policy. I appreciate that we are all new to this, so it is not that I am criticising Ministers. I just want to know how we can translate the academic work into public policy that meets needs. Could Dr. Murphy comment on this aspect? Perhaps he has not thought of it, preferring to concentrate on coming up with ideas. However, if he has, I would be interested to hear his views.
Dr. Murphy mentioned wood thinnings, which is interesting in view of the current debate in the Seanad on forestry. Is there potential within forestry that we are not realising? If so, what is it?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
Forestry is not my area of expertise but I saw when visiting Austria that they use a lot of wood. It is used for bioenergy, heating and so on. There is also the possibility of using wood to make renewable diesel. There is great potential for wood. Wood thinnings are not obtained from clear felling but from maintaining forest. However, I could not claim to be an expert in this area.
A question was asked about advisory bodies. In the sustainable energy research group at UCC, we have researchers in wind, in solar energy and in policy. From my point of view, transport is not at the races in terms of research. There is a lot of money there for wind and wave energy. When people talk about greenhouse gas emissions from energy, the electricity field dominates. If we consider energy as a pie, there are three parts: heat, electricity and transport. Transport is the biggest of these. My research funding tends to come from the EPA and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. As a lecturer in transportation I am subject to a certain amount of pressure in this regard — although I am a transport engineer, my work is focused on bio-fuels and science. I cannot find the funding from the Department or from any transport body. The Environmental Protection Agency funds environmental research, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food funds agricultural research but who funds transport research? I am a transport lecturer but I do not know of any body that funds transport research. The NRA had a few calls but they were specific to building roads.
From speaking to various people who manage our bus service I learned that the subvention in Ireland is very low, about 20%, while in Austria it is 73%. These people find it difficult. The local area manager of Bus Éireann in Cork gives a module to my students who are inclined to be critical about the reasons we do not have more buses. With a subvention of 20% compared to Austria's 73% it is quite difficult. We need many more buses. I attended several conferences this year, burning lots of carbon getting to them. In each venue lots of buses were visible. On the streets of Rotterdam, the first thing I noted was the bicycle lane, which is the most dangerous lane, then the light rail lane and then the car lane. When a person crosses the road there are three avenues to investigate. The roads were quite empty.
We must invest in public transport throughout the country. Dublin is coming on line now with the metro and the further Luas extensions. It was argued in the past that 1 million people are needed for a light rail system. I have travelled in most of the cities in Sweden and each one has a light rail system, even cities with populations as low as 80,000 people. However, a light rail system is not actually needed because it is powered by electricity. The bus rapid transport system, where the buses look like light rail and carry 220 people, is preferable. We need public transport to be considerably more frequent and for this more money must be invested. Emissions could be reduced very significantly, especially if coupled with the use of bio-fuels, in particular gaseous bio-fuels, which are ideally suited to such transport.
When people ask experts about climate change, they always throw up their hands and say that they have no solution to emissions from live cattle. Does Dr. Murphy have a solution?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
That is not really my area but I understand that the average cow belches a tonne of methane which is 21 tonnes of CO2. I tell my students that the average carbon emitted by a person in India is one tonne of CO2. There are 5 million cattle in Ireland, more cattle than people. The emissions from each of those is equivalent to what 21 citizens of India produce. If cattle are included, our population is a lot more than 4 million, being instead in the region of 100 million. We export 80% of our meat. That is a big problem. If we are exporting meat and we have belching cattle we have a difficult problem. Should we say that we will not export meat and that we will reduce the herd by a factor of five and thus solve our greenhouse gas emissions?
I heard a debate between Senator Dan Boyle of the Green Party and an economist from the ESRI in which the economist said that if Ireland were to meet the Kyoto Protocol targets there would be a revolution and demonstrations on the street. Our transport emissions have trebled. If we want to meet the Kyoto Protocol targets, the best equation is to take last year's usage of 3,000 litres of diesel by the average person and offer that person 1,000 litres this year. We could limit the importation of petrol and diesel to 13% above 1990 levels. Then there would be revolution. That is if we were serious about meeting the Kyoto Protocol targets, which we are not.
Are we becoming too fanciful? I look at cities the size of Dublin, which is not very big, where an underground system is proposed. If a small city were to use the sort of buses that Dr. Murphy has shown the committee, buses that carry 200 people, there would be less disruption, it would be a much cheaper system and could be produced very quickly. We get caught up in the thought that if X, Y and Z have something then we must have it too, instead of looking at a solution that might be better.
Some years ago, prior to the cost and disruption caused by the LUAS, the then chairman of CIE said to me that if CIE were to get the money, it could provide a public transport system within the same area straightaway, with far less cost and disruption. It is lovely to have the LUAS now but are we going to wait another ten or 15 years for a new LUAS line and a new underground or should we opt for Dr. Murphy's type of gas-fuelled buses?
And lots of them.
Yes. These are the sorts of decisions that have to be taken very quickly. One can talk forever but targets have to be met. Instead of bits of this and bits of that — a certain percentage of the car population using bio-fuel and a certain percentage of public transport likewise — would we not be better off concentrating on public transport? If we had an efficient system, that in turn would reduce the number of cars. People would start using public transport because it was efficient. That would seem to be the priority rather than having a bit of the system bio-fuelled as Dr. Murphy recommends and the rest powered by diesel. What would Dr. Murphy do if he had to make a policy decision?
Dr. Jerry Murphy
The Chairman makes a good point. If I were looking at Cork, Galway or Limerick, for example, I would not have a LUAS because that requires rails on the ground and overhead electricity lines. It becomes very expensive and disruptive. Bus rapid transport can be bought easily, runs on rubber wheels and looks like a LUAS tram. It can have very clean air quality because it runs on gas. As soon as the buses are bought they can be on the streets. No electricity or rails are involved.
We are increasing our usage of fuel in the transport system by 7% every year. If we meet the bio-fuels directive in 2010 we could still have used more petrol and diesel in 2009 because the percentage is negated. Public transport is a must. I would like to see a Government purchasing lots of buses and running them on gas. I do not see a great need for a light rail system in any city in Ireland. In Dublin the buses could run alongside the LUAS. They would be quicker and less expensive. Buses are available from different manufacturers in Europe and they can be run on gas. The only requirement is that you need a lot of them. That is the only way to reduce our fuel consumption by a factor of three.
I was in Hong Kong recently where taxis run on gas. That is another area to examine. I mentioned this to the Minister when he was with the committee. The taxi regulator was talking about the age of taxis and the requirement for five years' notice. We should give notice that in five years' time every taxi in Dublin will be run on gas. That is the sort of decision that needs to be taken. An incentive should be given. In terms of fuel costs, gas would be cheaper for the taxi owner and that in turn should mean lower fares for the user.
The target groups, such as the agriculture fleet itself, are important.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
A combine harvester runs on gas in Austria. I forgot to answer that question.
Deputy McManus asked about methane. Some of the methane comes from the other end, in the form of slurry. Perhaps that could be captured that before it is spread. There is another point which we might return to at a future meeting, Chairman. NUI, Maynooth, has produced research, with the involvement of Dr. Liam Downey, on a properly managed diet for bovines that can reduce methane by between 20% and 30%. Bovines pose the problem because they are ruminants. Perhaps that could be combined with the harvesting of residual gas in the slurry storage to reduce the amount of emissions. At the end of the day bovines produce milk, dairy products and meat. We cannot ruin an industry because it is part of the problem, but we can try to mitigate the amount it produces. That is for another day, but I agree we should target the big groups, rather than the retail outlets, as a source of transport fuel until such time as we can target the transport sector, including public transport, taxis, the agricultural fleet and the private transport fleet.
There is a verbatim report of today's proceedings. I propose to send a letter with the report to the Minister for Transport, asking him to examine it. On his next visit to the committee, perhaps he could give his views on the various points that were raised.
We will not let this die. I hope and intend that today's very valuable session will not go to waste. The committee hopes to be in Cork; perhaps we will have the opportunity to meet again with Dr. Murphy at that stage. I recommend that, perhaps later this year, the committee or representatives of it visit some of the sites Dr. Murphy spoke of so we can see them at first hand. It is better to see and talk to people. Dr. Murphy might recommend the best place for the committee to visit. The meeting today was worthwhile. I sincerely thank Dr. Murphy for coming here. The committee is enlightened as a result of his contribution.
Dr. Jerry Murphy
Thank you for your hospitality.
The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government will address the next meeting of the committee.
The joint committee adjourned at 3.55 p.m. until 9.30 a.m. on Thursday, 28 February 2008.