James Cogan IrBEA Biofuel Representative Reports on the Sector

James Cogan  (EERL) is a corporate member of IrBEA has recently had a number of meetings with ministers and department officials. Ethanol Europe is an Irish firm that operating an ethanol production facility Pannonia, Hungary . His article in Agriland discusses the status of the Biofuels industry in Europe and Ireland and what issues need to be overcome for the sector to grow, he is concerned that the Irish Government is supporting moves that minimise the use of biofuels at EU level.
Currently Ireland produces 17.5% of the biofuels that are used domestically; however, it is all derived from used cooking oil and animal fat. No Irish farmers are producing biofuels at present. At the EU level however 33% of biofuels – and all of the ethanol that goes to improving climate performance in petrol cars – comes from wheat, maize and beet produced by European farmers. Cogan insists that domestic tillage crop biofuels will dominate the market in the future as they are truly safe and effective as climate solutions. Currently the sector  buys €7 billion worth of tillage crops each year (equivalent to 12% of CAP) and gives back 17 million tonnes of GMO-free protein feed; plus, 220,000 jobs in rural areas and a flourishing bio-economy.

Cogan has held meetings with Minister Michael Creed and Denis Naughten in a bid to boost support for the “promising” sector, he stresses that the Government should ambitiously support biofuels for two reasons in particular: firstly because it is good for the climate; and secondly because of the benefits it can bring farmers. Tillage farming in Ireland has declined 17% in the last five years, With proper support Ireland’s tillage farmers could see a reverse in this trend and processing of their crops at home. He says Ireland must look to the example set by the Scandinavian countries – Sweden in particular – where 20% of country’s transport energy comes from biofuels. To read the article in full here