Sustainable Industries Ireland Ltd (SII) has formally launched its plans to build a €200 million biorefinery/ biogas project in the southeast which could resurrect the sugar beet industry.

SII chairman John Nicholas said yesterday that the company had identified sites in Co Carlow and at Belview Port, Waterford, for the plant which would produce 300 million litres of bioethanol a year.

It would have a separate anaerobic waste digestion facility and hoped to generate biogas from agricultural, sewage and municipal waste, he said.

IFA president Pádraig Walshe said the news was positive for the tillage sector.