EPA - Ireland's Environment, An Integrated Assessment - 2020

Ireland’s Environment – An Integrated Assessment 2020 Currently, a variety of units are used for energy production, reporting, use and trading. These include barrels, litres, tonnes of oil equivalent and other industry-specific units. For clarity, this report uses the international standard energy units of joules (J) and watt-hours (Wh). A watt is a unit of energy used in 1 second, with the unit of energy being a joule. The joule replaced the calorie in 1969. The calorie is still used in popular discussion of foods and dieting. One joule is equivalent to about 0.24 calories. The use of standard energy units, along with price data and environmental impacts, would assist in comparisons and decision-making. This would allow individuals, households, communities and businesses to better understand and manage their energy use. The provision of such information could also be included in media and communications materials along with environmental impacts. Energy and Negative Emissions Ireland will need to plan for large-scale removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (negative emissions) and a national framework for advancing robust negative emissions solutions is required. Scientifically, it is recognised that there will be a need for large-scale removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which is termed negative emissions, to offset any overshoot of the carbon budgets required to meet the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement (IPCC, 2018) (Chapter 2). The scale required of such negative emissions will depend on the overshoot of carbon dioxide emissions relative to the Paris Agreement temperature goal and the scale of residual emissions of non-carbon dioxide GHGs from food production systems that cannot be reduced to zero. Currently, the management of terrestrial sinks is the main approach for the provision of negative emissions or removal of carbon dioxide. A new national land use strategy could support further use of terrestrial sinks. However, the capacity and resilience of these sinks is limited, and management systems are needed to ensure that they are robust and quantifiable. While full estimates of the scale of negative carbon dioxide emissions that Ireland requires need to be developed, it is likely that these will be significant. They would include the long-term storage of carbon dioxide in geological or similarly secure systems for periods that are akin to those needed for the storage of nuclear wastes. Globally, future energy systems will be central to the delivery of required large-scale negative carbon dioxide emissions (e.g. through the use of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) or direct air capture; IPCC, 2018). However, there are limits to how much land can be used sustainably for BECCS, and there are also environmental and food security risks (IPCC, 2019). These issues will need to be addressed but future energy systems are likely to have a key role in providing negative emissions. A national framework for the analysis and delivery of negative emissions solutions is required to complement the national decarbonisation process. In combination, these should have the objectives of reaching net zero carbon emissions in the coming decades and providing a framework for further negative emissions, at least until the end of this century. EPA Research Programme 2014-2020 Environment and Energy Since 2016, the EPA has funded up to 32 new research projects relevant to the Environment and Energy area; a commitment of €3.4 million. These projects were funded mostly under the Climate and Sustainability Pillars of the EPA Research Programme 2014-2020. Examples of EPA-funded research projects include research on: n green adsorbents for clean energy n the production of advanced gaseous biomethane transport fuel in an integrated circular bioenergy system n residential solid fuel use in Ireland and the transition away from solid fuels n the potential for negative emissions technology in Ireland n developing the potential of community energy action groups in the transition to a low-carbon society n the Long-range Energy Alternatives Planning (LEAP) model and GHG emissions in Ireland analytical tool 1990-2030. More information is available from http://www.epa.ie/researchandeducation/research/ 320