Missed Oppertunity?

RichieO

In 2006 Irish sugar beet production was stopped and all the processing plants
were closed down when the government withdrew the subsidies. What a big mistake! Sugar beet can be processed into ethanol which can be added to petrol at 10% to 22% and can be added to other bio-fuels. I wonder what could have been achieved in this area with a little foresight? Any chance they will recapitulate and create a worthwhile industry with many jobs and benefits to the country?

I suppose the answer is "NOT A FREAKIN HOPE" Great pity!

Before you poo - poo it, read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil

Very economical in Brazil! And the U.S.

cson

Bio-fuels have been shown to be an extremely un-economical practice thus far. So no.

RichieO

cson wrote: »

Bio-fuels have been shown to be an extremely un-economical practice thus far. So no.

So Yes!

jmayo

As someone who has some knowledge of Carlow, I found it unbelievable that they axed the plant, tore it down and were goiong to build yet another shopping centre, retail units and residential units on the site.

The town had enough of all of these, but it did not nor doesn't have enough sustainable employers.
Yet again our imagination was limited to building f***ing houses. :mad::mad:

Also all the beet growers would have been available.
Why didn't anyone ever think about going biofuels for the public transport fleets in this country.
May not be economical at moment, but I can't see it being economical down the road to be buying huge quantities of ever increasing oil products.

syklops

Ethanol is a very inefficient way of making fuel. The only reason it gets a mention is because of the Iowa Caucus.

It takes about a half a gallon of Diesel to make one gallon of ethanol.

Also, the beet production shut down because it was no longer being subsidised. If a business cannot survive without being propped up by the government it should go out of business(dont mention banks to me).

RichieO

There are plenty of forein bussinesses that have enjoyed susidies and massive tax breaks and then high tail it when the going gets tough... At least home grown bussiness
is less likely to bolt, and this particular bussiness could reduce petrol imports by 20% and be self supportive by at least the same amount, if not more...

Head The Wall

Countries producing bio fuels are also experiencing food shortages. They have replaced food crops and now their countries are suffering as a result of this

RichieO

I am not advocating using food crops, sugar beet was grown to make sugar, which we now import, most of the land used for beet is now pasture, quite a lot of arable farmland is unused, yet there is no shortage of food here... Brazil & the U.S. are the biggest useres of ethanol and there's no shortage of food there either...

Tipp Man

syklops wrote: »

Also, the beet production shut down because it was no longer being subsidised. If a business cannot survive without being propped up by the government it should go out of business(dont mention banks to me).

Rubbish, loads of companies and industries receive government support be that direct, indirect or through tax breaks. It happens all over the country and all over the world. its most obvioius in argriculture but don't be fooled into thinking its the only supported industry

One extremely obvioius example in this country is travel, whichever mode you talk about

Peanut

RichieO wrote: »

I am not advocating using food crops, sugar beet was grown to make sugar, which we now import, most of the land used for beet is now pasture, quite a lot of arable farmland is unused, yet there is no shortage of food here... Brazil & the U.S. are the biggest useres of ethanol and there's no shortage of food there either...

I think you'd really have to dig down into the figures, e.g.

• Is imported sugar substantially cheaper than home produced?
• How much revenue is coming from using the land as pasture vs beet?
• Is using the land for pasture a better fit to demand from nearby export markets?
• How much do subsidides contribute to the business viability of each type of land use?

jmayo

Peanut wrote: »

I think you'd really have to dig down into the figures, e.g.

• Is imported sugar substantially cheaper than home produced?
• How much revenue is coming from using the land as pasture vs beet?
• Is using the land for pasture a better fit to demand from nearby export markets?
• How much do subsidides contribute to the business viability of each type of land use?

Well with the way agriculture is going there isn't money being made from the pasture land (the ar** has fallen out of dairying with farmers now on incomes comaprable to what they were on 20 odd years ago) and things will get even worse once CAP comes to an end, so IMHO farmers would probably jump at the chance of growing crops for biofuels.

Also due to EU restrictions we can't use some of our arable land for growing cereals etc so they might as well be used to grow crops for biofuels.

Also wouldn't the greens be happy with less cows polluting the atmosphere :rolleyes: