Ireland's First Grass-Fed Biorefinery Hits the Road to Help Farmers Go Green

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May 16, 2019

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(European Science Communication Institute/Phys.org) A New Mobile Refinery Is Travelling Across The West Of Ireland To Turn Grass Into Sustainable Materials -- Along the windy west coast of Ireland a biorefinery on wheels is turning grass into a series of different green products that could give farmers a more diversified source of income.

"This is Ireland's first grass-fed biorefinery," said James Gaffey, a researcher at the University of Tralee in county Kerry which is leading the project. "And it's the first step looking at grass-based bioeconomy options for Ireland."

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The juice is turned into a dry protein-rich cake that can be absorbed easier by cows so it generates less emissions from their digestion process or from feeding them other feed, like soy beans imported from Brazil.

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The leftover fibre can be processed into a sustainable alternative to synthetic fertiliser or used as a more efficient supply of fuel for anaerobic digesters, which breaks down the biological material and turns it into natural gas. Both solutions would take another chunk out of Ireland's agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.

These different sustainable products could also help farmers enter new markets.

"We're working on using the fibre as feedstock for a liquid cellulose process, which is a building block that could be used as an alternative to PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic," said Gaffey.

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The next step for the mobile biorefinery is to recruit enough farmers to establish a network that can help prove the potential of the bioeconomy. To do this Gaffey will demonstrate the technology to different farmer groups which he hopes will help them see the untapped value in each blade of grass.

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CLUBE is a member of the EU-wide RUBIZMO project, which is a collection of clusters aiming to stimulate similar bioeconomy businesses and entrepreneurs elsewhere. If fully utilised the EU thinks the bioeconomy could create an additional one million jobs by 2030, generally in rural or coastal areas where employment is needed to curb the exodus of its people to cities.

Ntavos is working with different businesses in Macedonia and Greece to help them reinvent their business models and drive the bioeconomy forward.

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This could have a huge impact in many areas of northern Greece and Macedonia where there is a lot waste leftover from agricultural production, like wine, olive oil, cereals and fruit production, as well as forestry. READ MORE