I thank the committee for inviting me. I am a private individual. This is my first time at this type of event so I may be a bit nervous.
I do not represent a company and this is a concept I have come up with along with Dr. Brian Tobin, who works in UCD. My background is in horticulture, forestry and renewable energy. I completed a course on short rotation forestry and this led to an application for a research stimulus fund in 2007 which Dr. Tobin and I put together. We did not win that at the time and we are back here promoting the idea. I am aware that the sub-committee does not give out money but I want to get the concept out there.
I work in forestry in the west of Ireland and I have noticed there are limitations in the amount of trees being planted there. Despite what people may hear about forestry being a growing endeavour, figures show that year-on-year, the area of land being planted is gradually diminishing. I hope this year might be an exception but the figure has been dropping for the nine years I have been in the west of Ireland.
There are a couple of reasons for this and a main issue is that because of the long-term nature of forestry, farmers do not want to switch land to permanent forestry. Whereas a farmer may not have a problem with it, the family or following generations may. There are more environmental restrictions every year such as SSEs, NHAs, etc. Some of the land is limited in what can be done anyway because of bad drainage or poor fertility. We feel that short rotation forestry has the potential to get around the problem of a decreasing amount of land being planted. It is a sustainable production and there is a good economic return. It is also socially sustainable in that it keeps people in the countryside.
Short rotation forestry is the cutting back of trees more or less to ground level and cutting them every two to five years on a periodic basis to produce woodchip. As the sub-committee heard from previous speakers, this can be used to produce heat and more importantly, it leads to second-generation fuels. It is the next step on from just burning the product.
As some of the members may be aware, willows are grant-aided but no other species are. That is a problem as the land on which willow can be planted is mainly good agricultural land. There are a limited number of sites and that land would compete with food production. Another problem of being limited to one species is disease and pests. By increasing the species range to other trees, we would get more potential for sites, less of a risk of disease and pests wiping out the crop, increased localised supply in poorer areas and we allow landowners more choice and options. We would also diversify the material for future projects in biomass and second-generation fuels.
Our project looks to increase the species range for short rotation and develop a management system for small-scale production, thereby increasing biomass production in economically disadvantaged areas by utilising locally-produced material and maintaining communities and jobs.
I know the sub-committee is conscious of how many jobs this could create. Although I could not get specific numbers for my concept, it has been stated that in the EU, biomass has the highest potential to create jobs among these technologies, including wind turbines and other forms of renewables. By 2020, 300,000 jobs could be created in the biomass sector as opposed to just in renewables.
We are looking to push this idea and we hope it can be incorporated into the sub-committee's report. We hope other species of trees for short rotation could be grant-aided rather than just willow, as is currently the case. In England, poplar is included in a similar scheme.