Biomass and biogas not sustainable - Mayo councillor

BIOMASS and biogas are not sustainable, Sinn Féin Councillor Gerry Murray told a meeting hosted by Swinford Biogas Concern Group in relation to local plans for a biogas facility.

Councillor Murray, who did not comment directly on the planning application currently before Mayo County Council, said national and EU policy has gone in the direction of biomass and biogas, but he felt farmers need to be incentivised to return to more traditional farming methods.

He has previously raised his concerns in Brussels where he was met with a wall of silence.

In terms of overall policy, be it biomass or biogass, they are not sustainable, he stated.

Forty or 50 years ago farmers put manure outside the stable during winter and in the summer they spread it on the land. When the fork went into it steam would rise up and it would be warm.

That, he said, was the muck going through the fermentation process, which killed off diseases. That muck was clinical and benign and methane was reduced due to fermentation. Biogas was trying to mimick that.

However, if we wanted a sustainable way to deal with this problem farmers had to be incentivised to go back to that system - move away from slatted sheds.

There are a number of farmers in his area, Charlestown, who have gone back to it and are putting out manure.

Government should be incentivising farmers to do this through grant aid.

The carbon footprint of biogas is not sustainable, Councillor Murray continued.

A previous biomass proposal had been made in the south of the county that involved the burning of willow. However, the list of wastes included everything that could go into an incinerator.

He raised what was on the list at a meeting in Brussels, holding up the renewable energy directive of 2009.

The response he got was 'total silence'. Neither was sustainable and governments don't have the expertise to adjudicate on it. An EU research group is needed to look at their sustainability and then if they are, licence them.

Policy has moved into biomass and biogas projects and in his view the two technologies are not sustainable. It is important to have government and EU reviews.

“There are other ways and let government incentivise the farming community to be sustainable.”