Energy Policy and Legislation - Report Example

Energy Policy and Legislation Planning for the company and pragmatic consideration for environmental issues Energy planning should incorporate inventories to pragmatically evaluate the amount of land potentially for biomass generation and the trade-offs associated in utilizing such land for biomass farms. Ireland is seriously considering biomass energy as an essential part of its energy supply in the near future. Further, it has already devoted itself to heavy investment in this area, an investment which has various effects, some of them environmental. As an objective for this company, it is therefore important to integrate the environmental considerations into the biomass energy growth process (Marten 65-74). This will involve putting environmental data in form which is understandable and consequential to decision makers by graphically indicating how environment affects human lives. In Ireland, the legislation restricts combustion to 30 percent of the maximum rated potential confiring in any plant till 2017, 40% between 2017 and 2019, and 50% thereafter. The legislation also restricts each technology in terms of suitable megawatts-AD IS CAPPED AT 50 MW (Austin 1-2). The proposed project is to set up a biomass CHP plant at existing sawmill company, for this we are looking forward to setting up the biomass plant in Dundrum. The company’s name will be Falcon Independent Biomass Group. The main objective of the company is to develop the project from concept to operational plant producing green energy (Heat and electricity) from wood byproducts such as sawdust, bark, peelings and forest thinning. After many consultations with the company’s board of directors, a conclusion was reached that this growth meant that in addition to having a bounteous supply of hot water at a fixed cost, the sawmill also has warranted market for its low-grade residues, protection from fluctuating energy costs, new revenue stream from green electricity which is sold to the National Grid and the fulfillment of understanding that minimized lorry journeys from the sawmill. An exhaustive feasibility study is essential to planning. In this project economic, technical and environmental considerations will be analyzed to establish whether the project was feasible and what direction it should take. The following licensing configurations are part of the planning process. Incorporated Pollution Control Licensing. It is germane in this case because the company already has an IPC license so required to inform the EPA of this alteration to their energy system. Planning permission Grid Connection Fire Certificate Commission for Energy Regulation-license to produce electricity and construct power plant. Power Purchase Agreement. Developments in recent years have shown that there are more effective and cleaner ways to utilize biomass. It can be transformed into liquid fuels, for instance, to produce flammable gases, which minimize numerous types of emanations from biomass combustion, specifically particulates. This means that unprocessed biomass characteristically cannot be cost-efficiently shipped more than about 60-100 miles before it is transformed into energy or fuel. For Falcon Indipendent Group our major objective is to find more effective and cleaner ways to utilize biomass. Energy underpins nearly every factor of our economy and day-to-day activities. Aspects such as population expansion and transformations in lifestyle have amounted to the universal demand for energy escalating to unparalleled levels. This has implications for us all, including the negative impact of climate change, air pollution, and, for Ireland and much of Europe, growing reliance on insecure, costly and finally constrained fossil fuel supplies (Marten 65-74). International, government and local authority Policies estimated to affect Falcon Independent Group and Licensing Globally global warming is acknowledged by many countries to be the key essential challenges facing us. Global warming is accredited to heightened levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as a result of heavy and escalated utilization of fossil fuels. The chief international context for action upon climate change in the UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change), which offer a forum to reflect on what can be done to maximize global warming and to deal with whatever temperature raises foreseeable. As in most nations, preliminary support for renewable energy in Ireland emerged in the form of research and growth funding in the 1980s as reaction to the oil emergency of the late 1970s. The collective trend of Government RD&D expenditures for renewables pointed at the start of the 1980s period and reduced evidently after 1993, with no fundamental funding between 1990 and 2001. Biomass R&D received the greatest level of funding securing roughly €1.5m in the 1974-2002 period (Schlamadinger & Maryland 1131-1140). The first policy documented on renewable energy in Ireland was published in 1996 and was titled Renewable Energy: A strange for the Future. The policy set a target of an additional 100 MW of installed potential utilizing renewable energy sources by the end of 1999. The support apparatus employed to accomplish this target was additional AER competitions, typified by fixed capital donation support, similar renewable energy technologies competing in their groups on the base of the price. Furthermore, the policy proposed an additional 300 MW target for renewable energy. In 1999, the second essential Government policy documented was published: the Green Paper on Sustainable Energy. The Green Paper established a new renewable energy target, specifically, the installation of an additional 500 MW of electricity producing potential from renewable sources by 2005. It was predicted that this would expand the percentage of electricity produced from renewable sources from 6.3 percent point in 2001 to 12.4 percent point by 2005 and expand the percentage of TPER (Total Percentage Energy Requirement) to be derived from the renewable sources from 2 percent in 2000 to 3.8 percent by 2005 ( Legget 60-63) Ireland’s objective under the Kyoto Protocol is to edge yearly green house gas emissions to 13 percent point above 1990 levels by the period 2008-2012. This is an ingredient of EU Burden Sharing Agreement whereby the collective EU objective reduction of 8 percent in emanations is to be accomplished through the jointed efforts of the member states. The government in October 2000, printed the National Climate Change Strategy (NCCS). This policy offers a perspective for accomplishing greenhouse gas emissions reductions in the most effective and evenhanded manner whilst enduring to support economic growth. The NCCS estimates that in the lack of the measures in the policy, Ireland is probably going to exceed the Kyoto objective by roughly 13 mt CO2 or 36.99 percent above 1990 levels. The cumulative effect by 2010 of NCCS measures was a reduction annually of 15.4 mt CO2 compared with the business as standard estimations. Local authorities in Ireland will monitor all of the company’s indicators however they are only needed to set advancement targets for up to 35 indicators as part of multi agency Local Area Agreements. The heightened share of renewable energy together with energy effectiveness in the EU has the prospective to minimize radically greenhouse gas emissions and advance air quality. Furthermore, Ireland’s well managed forestry and agriculture segments will benefit greatly from new market opportunities as the bioenergy market expands. In spite of such benefits, the heightened utilization of renewables may still increase maintainability concerns, with respect to both generation and infrastructure, in terms of open or oblique effects on biodiversity and the environment as a whole. This needs specific concentration and watchfulness. In overall, such issues are addressed by the cross-cutting EU legislation (Legget 86-89). Work Cited Austin, Anna. “Ireland Incentives Biomass.” Biomass 25 May 2010: 1-2. Print. Laird, David. “The Charcoal Vision: A Win-Win-Win Scenario for Simultaneously Producing Bioenergy, Permanently Sequestering Carbon, while Improving Soil and Water Quality.” Agronomy Journal100 (2008): 178-181. Legget, Jeremy. Renewable Energy: A User’s Guide. Oxford: Butterworth, 2009 Print. Lichtfouse, Eric. Genetics, Biofuels and Local Farming Systems. Boca Raton, Florida. Auerbach Publications, 2011. Print. Marten, Gerald. “Land Use Issues in Biomass Energy Planning.” Resource Policy 8 (1982): 65- 74. Print. Maryland, Greg. & Schlamadinger, Brian. “Biomass Fuels and Forest-Management Strategies: How do We Calculate the Greenhouse Emission Benefits?” Energy—The International Journal 15.1 (1995): 1131-1140. Print. Rice, Bernard. Potential for Energy Production from Agricultural and Forest Biomass in Ireland. Boston: Prentice Hall, 1997. Print. Read More