Sinead O 'Keeffe

• PhD
• Researcher at Wageningen University & Research

There is an urgent need to change the current extractive and resource-intensive agricultural practices. Adopting circular practices within the agricultural system could provide multiple benefits of slowing global climate change, reducing extractive practices and helping farmers to adapt to a changing climate. However, there are still many barriers...

Rights and access to land are major pressing issues among mainly first-generation agroecological farmers in the Netherlands. Due to short-term tenure contracts and high land prices, these farmers face an insecure future. Because of this, they are often unable to make long-term ecological investments, such as planting trees and taking measures to im...

REFOOTRURE Project white paper

Anaerobic digestion producing biogas is an important decentralized renewable energy technology used to mitigate climate change. It is dependent on local and regional feedstocks, which determine its sustainability. This has led to discussions on how to alter feedstock for biogas plants without compromising their GHG (Greenhouse gas) saving, one part...

Over the last decade, the bioeconomy has become increasingly important and visible in international policy agendas, with several strategies being recently developed. The implementation of bio-based technologies mostly takes place on a regional scale. Therefore, from a regional perspective, a key question revolves around what main challenges are ass...

Anaerobic digestion to produce biogas is an important decentralised renewable energy technology. Production varies extensively between different countries and within countries, as biogas production is heavily dependent on local and regional feedstocks. In Germany, distinct regional differences can be observed. Therefore, understanding the kinds of...

The German government has recently initiated funding schemes that incentivize strategies for wood‐based bioeconomy regions. Regional wood and chemical industries have been encouraged to act symbiotically, that is, share pilot plant facilities, couple processes where feasible, and cascade woody feedstock throughout their process networks. However, d...

The inclusion of biogas production into the agricultural system has modified crop management and as a result the soil organic carbon (SOC) cycle of the agricultural landscape. To evaluate the effects for the German federal state of Saxony this study determines: (1) the share of agricultural land required for biogas production, (2) the change in reg...

In recent years the need to consider the social dimension of sustainability within life cycle thinking has been increasing, catalysing the development of many different social life cycle assessment approaches (sLCA). The demand to assess potential social effects has been strengthened further, due to the implementation of national bioeconomy strateg...

Purpose With many policies in Germany steering towards a bioeconomy, there is a need for analytical tools that assess not only the environmental and economic implications but also the social implications of a transition to a bioeconomy. Wood is expected to become a major biomass resource in bioeconomy regions. Therefore, this paper develops a socia...

Wood-based products will play a pivotal role in the development of German bioeconomy regions. This transition in production patterns should develop sustainably without negative effects to the environment and society. Therefore, appropriate assessment tools are required to measure and document (un)sustainable aspects. The use of life cycle thinking...

Biodiesel is an important bridging biofuel for reducing greenhouse gases (GHG). In 2015 Germany, introduced a new GHG based quota scheme for biofuels. However, the use of default GHG values for rapeseed cultivation could provide inaccurate for specific regions and locations. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to use RELCA (a REgional Life Cycle i...

Purpose With many environmental burdens associated with bioenergy production occurring at the regional level, there is a need to produce more regional and spatially representative life cycle assessment of bioenergy systems. On the other hand, such assessments also need to account for the global and cumulative impacts along the full bioenergy life c...

Background: The last decade has seen major development and adoption of bioenergy, particularly in Germany. This has resulted in a scattering of decentralised bioenergy plants across the landscape, due to their dependency on spatially diffuse biomass resources. Regional conditions (e.g., soils, climate, management) influence the environmental burden...

The global demand for energy, particularly for transport fuels, will continue to increase significantly in the future. In addition to other options, like increased technological efficiencies, traffic reduction or modal shift, biofuels are promoted to contribute strongly to the transport sector in the years to come. Biofuels are also promoted as par...

For regional approaches dealing with first generation bioenergy production, biomass availability for a bioenergy plant is one of the most crucial parameters to calculate. Land Cover Maps such as the CORINE LC (DLR, 2009) provide information on land use within the region and how it is distributed spatially across the region. The crop allocation mode...

The global demand for energy, particularly fuels, will continue to increase significantly in the future. In addition to other options, such as increased efficiencies, traffic reduction and relocation, and electro-mobility, biofuels are strongly advocated to compensate for a large proportion of the forecast consumption in the years to come. Against...

Green biorefinery (GBR) is an alternative use of grassland biomass. GBR involves applying technology to chemically and physically fractionate (split) biomass such as grass and grass silage to produce marketable products. Three GBR system models were developed in a companion paper to determine, using scenario analysis, the most technically feasible...

Renewable energy is one of the mainstays of a sustainable energy supply in Germany. Through a targeted subsidies policy and accompanying growth, many positive effects have already been achieved. Apart from a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, numerous of investments have been made in plants and production capacities and therefore a...

In Ireland, grass is a readily available bioresource. It has previously been established that Green biorefinery (GBR) could become a potential use of Irish grasslands, and a blueprint for a sustainable GBR industry in Ireland has been developed. The objective of this paper is to use scenario analysis to investigate the sensitivity of the profitabil...

“Green biorefinery” (GBR) could be an alternative option for using grassland biomass. GBR involves applying technology to chemically and physically fractionate (split) biomass such as grass and grass silage into marketable products. From the grass fibre fraction insulation materials can be produced. From the grass juice fraction, proteinaceous prod...

Irish grassland: feedstock for a green biorefinery application - Volume 1 Issue 1 - S.O Keeffe, R.P.O Schulte, L. Kirwan, P.C. Struik

Growing grass for a green biorefinery – an option for Ireland? Mind the gap: deciphering the gap between good intentions and healthy eating behaviour Halting biodiversity loss by 2020 – implications for agriculture A milk processing sector model for Ireland