UCD SBFE Lecturer contributes to Irish Times article

"In Ireland’s case, it has committed to ensuring that a minimum of 30 per cent of the fuel burned at Edenderry will be biomass. Currently, it is ahead of target, hitting 37 per cent. In time, Bord na Móna plans to use more than 1.5 million tonnes of biomass per year there. According to the company, emissions of over 1.1 million tonnes of CO2 have already been avoided between 2008 and 2015 by using biomass in place of peat, but critics strongly disagree.

Dr Fionnuala Murphy of University College Dublin is one of them: “There’s a big policy problem with all of this biomass being automatically considered carbon-neutral,” she said, echoing warnings from the European Environment Agency (EEA). Writing in 2011 about the dangers of the accounting rules, the EEA warned that the EU rules to encourage bioenergy, irrespective of the biomass source, “may even result in increased carbon emissions – thereby accelerating global warming”."

Full article available (opens in a new window)here.

Further details of Dr. Murphy's research is available (opens in a new window)here.