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Category Archives: Bioenergy
Calderdale Council refuses Freedom of Information request about proposed PFI waste incinerator
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Calderdale Council has just sent me their refusal to provide information about the proposed Bradford/Calderdale Private Finance Initiative (PFI) waste incinerator and power station that I requested before the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) withdrew their funding for this and other proposed waste incinerators.
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24th April protest against coal-biomass conversions at Drax AGM
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Large-scale biomass burning is not carbon neutral and will worsen climate change
The Leeds City Region Green Economy Panel is promoting large-scale biomass electricity generation at the Drax power station near Leeds.
Like many members of the public, the Green Economy Panel members probably assume that burning wood and other biomass is carbon neutral. In other words – that burning wood and other biomass doesn’t add to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, because new forest growth will absorb and store the carbon emissions released when the wood is burned. This isn’t the case – the European Environment Agency calls the assumption “ a serious accounting error”.
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Defra withdraws PFI funding for Bradford/Calderdale waste incinerator
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York Press reports that the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has just withdrawn Private Finance Initiative (PFI) funding for waste incinerators/Combined Heat and Power generators in Allerton Park, North Yorkshire and Bradford. This is because EU waste reduction targets have now been met, so the incinerators are no longer needed.
Defra is reported as saying that it’s up to the local authorities to decide if they want to go ahead with the waste incinerators without the PFI funding.
Apparently Calderdale Council have already spent £670,000 on the Bradford PFI incinerator project.
FOI request – Calderdale MBC £9.2m investment in Private Finance Initiative Bradford Waste Incinerator
I’ve just sent a Freedom of Information request to Calderdale Council, asking how they’ve worked out that a Calderdale Council investment of £9.2m in the Private Finance Initiative Waste Incinerator and Combined Heat and Power generator in Bradford will save it £200K/year over the life of the PFI contract.
I’ve also asked whether Calderdale Cabinet accepted the Council Officer’s recommendation that the Council should invest this £9.2m. Despite the extremely bad record of PFI schemes.
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Email Green Investment Bank Chair & Cllr Battye to stop funding big biomass
Here’s the link to the BIofuelwatch webpage which has an email to send to the Chair of the UK Green Investment Bank. Please send an email – you can re word it to suit yourself, or simply send the version that Biofuelwatch has written.
You might also want to email Councillor Janet Battye, who represents Calderdale Council on the Leeds City Region (LCR) Green Economy Panel. The LCR Green Economy Panel support the Green Investment Bank’s £100m investment in big biomass at Drax. Here’s the Email I have sent Cllr Battye – please feel free to use this as a template for your own email if that helps.
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Waste Incinerator Private Finance Initiative Report Is Baffling
The Waste Treatment Private Finance Initiative Report states that the cost to Calderdale Council of borrowing £9.2m to invest in the construction of the Private Finance Initiative Bradford waste incinerator/combined heat and power generator would be around £564,000 a year. But the Report says that despite the cost, Calderdale Council would “look to” save £200K/year as a result of the investment. I can’t figure this out. Someone please explain!
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Calderdale Council Cabinet votes Monday Feb 11th on £9m investment in new waste incinerator
A week after the Department for Communities and Local Government refused to hold a public inquiry into controversial plans for a waste incinerator in North Yorkshire, Calderdale Council has announced that tomorrow, on Monday 11 February, Calderdale’s Cabinet will consider a report which recommends the Council invests £9m investment in a new waste incinerator to be constructed at Bowling Back Lane in Bradford.
If you want to tell the Cabinet what you think of this, here is the list of Cabinet members, with links to their email addresses.
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Stop ROC subsidies for palm oil-fuelled electricity
Alert reposted from Biofuelwatch
Please write to your MP today with a new Parliamentary Briefing and urge him or her to call on the Department for Energy and Climate Change to drop their plans for long-term subsidies for biofuel/palm oil electricity.
