Why biomethane?
In the Climate Action Plan 2021, the government has pledged to invest in biomethane in order to meet the required level of agriculture emissions reduction by 2030. It also states that the raw materials to supply the AD could be managed through improved productivity and grassland management practices, an approach echoed by Niamh Gillen, innovation manager with GNI.
The change of land use from fodder to feedstock could be an important solution for farmers if the national herd is to be reduced.
The local facility was approved planning permission in 2020 by An Bord Pleanala, despite an objection by An Taisce.
The objection by An Taisce to this development is one shared by international organisations against the biogas industry itself. The fear is that the production of biomethane can become an industry in and of itself, rather than an environmentally friendlier approach than fossil fuels.
Tim Juliani and Pete Pearso of the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) believe that biogas, or biomethane, is a greener fuel than gas produced by fracking, or other fossil fuels usage. However, they consider biogas to be an important ‘transition fuel’ on the way to complete decarbonisation of fuel supply.
“Biogas, also known as renewable natural gas, is ‘renewable’ in the sense that humans and animals will keep producing waste – but we don’t want to encourage generating more waste for the sole purpose of creating more biogas.”
SUSTAINABLE SOURCE
Chemically, biomethane is identical to gas that is found in the ground. It is ‘greener’, as it is produced from dead animal and plant material. Whereas natural gas is a natural resource obtained from fossil fuels, and thus can be depleted, biomethane has a constant ‘source’, in food waste and animal manure.
Friends of the Earth, in a UK report, published that “Bioenergy could help, if it’s from sustainable sources, but currently most of it isn’t. Most biofuels for cars come from crops.” Their report claimed that the bioenergy industry, by not reusing waste but growing crops specifically for bioenergy, use valuable land that can be used for food and leads to deforestation.
An Taisce’s appeal to the planning permission for the Mitchelstown plant made reference to this same potential issue. “By not doing an Environmental Impact Assessment report, it fails to ensure the sustainability of the supply of biogas for injection and of the feedstock needed to create the biogas.”
An Taisce’s objection rested on the fact that the facility’s planning was granted permission without considering the full impact of a biomethane facility, in all its constituent parts. “The applicant’s Environmental Report has treated the proposal as a standalone project on the site only.”
The response to the appeal pointed out that, currently, there is ‘excessive spreading of slurries on lands’, and that anaerobic digestion (AD) facilities will help mitigate this. It also points out that the catchment area of the waste, which is 60km around the Mitchelstown site, currently stores 10 million tonnes (Mt) of animal slurry, and the site only needs 1.2 Mt to service the operation.