Activists from Climate Camp Cymru [1] have blockaded a biomass plant in Port Talbot to protest against plans to produce electricity from imported woodchips.
Two protestors used bicycle locks to close off the plant’s entrance, stopping the hourly 20-tonne deliveries of woodchip needed to keep the power station operating. A large banner on the gates reads “Biomess”. Other activists climbed up the chimney to unfurl a giant banner in Welsh reading “Clean Energy: Dirty Joke”.
The plant is the first of its kind in the UK, incinerating woodchips to generate electricity. It is a test plant for the large-scale plants that have been announced in Britain. The world’s largest biomass plant (350 MW) has already been approved in Port Talbot and construction is due to start early next year. The second largest in the world is planned for Holyhead, Anglesey.
Rob Goodsell, 33 said, “The Port Talbot and Holyhead biomass plants will require an area of dedicated biomass plantations half the size of Wales. A land area this size could feed up to a third of the population of Britain. With the world facing serious food security issues in coming years this is crazy.”
Ioan Gwyn, 29 said: “The power companies said the wood will come from sustainable sources but the reality is very different. In 2008 about 9 million hectares of industrial tree plantations have been certified as sustainable despite evidence of their devastating effects on people and the environment [2]. These plantations are in fact green deserts: they consume vast amounts of water and are empty of native wildlife.”
Melissa Harvey commented: “Burning wood is called carbon neutral but this is a myth. [3] It’s hard to believe but burning wood for electricity is even dirtier than coal. It releases one and half as much carbon dioxide as burning coal, [4] and the other pollution affecting air quality is nearly as bad as coal.” [5]
Adam Thorogood said: “We’re going to cook the world’s remaining forests to fight climate change. At this rate, research shows that the world’s forests will be all gone within the next 60 years.”
Ioan Gwyn commented: “Burning wood releases carbon dioxide. Each plant will emit about 4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. This means that Wales’ carbon dioxide emissions will increase by 20% as soon as Port Talbot and Holyhead biomass plant open. Whilst scientists are warning of the fragility of forest ecosystems, the UK government is subsidising their destruction by giving these two developers £400 million a year. Instead, they should be giving subsidies to truly clean energy, such as wind and solar power.” [6]
Rob Goodsell added: “Forests play a key role in sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The best thing to do is to leave the carbon locked up as wood, and that means not burning it.”
Melissa Harvey concluded: “Catastrophic climate change could be unstoppable in as little as 10 years. This is our last window of opportunity. False solutions such as biomass and carbon trading mean we’ll have no chance at all. And when we talk about catastrophic climate change, we’re not talking hot summers, we’re talking about the question of survival.”
Contacts for interviews:
- Protesters: mobile phone numbers: 07952 932 626 / 07909 171 951. Address: Western Wood Energy Plant, 1 Longland Lane, Port Talbot, SA13 2NR.
- Interviews in Welsh: Angharad Penrhyn Jones: 07780 914 369
- Biofuelwatch: Almuth Ernsting: 01224 324797.
- Port Talbot Residents Against Power Stations: Pete Wilson: 01639 884 820, Jeremy Baileys: 07702069561. http://www.pt-raps.co.uk/index.html; info@pt-raps.co.uk
- High-res photos available here.
Notes:
[1] Climate Camp Cymru: www.climatecampcymru.org. Take Action 1-7 December.
[2] “Can we trust the FSC?” the Ecologist: http://www.theecologist.org/trial_investigations/325243/can_we_trust_the_fsc.html
[3] “Goodbye to Carbon Neutral” http://www.maforests.org/Carbon.pdf
[4] Biomass Factsheet from Dr Mary Booth http://massenvironmentalenergy.org/docs/biomass%20factsheet%20from%20MEEA.pdf
[5] Environmental Impacts of Biomass Energy Options: Government report Sept 2006: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2006/09/22094104/6
[6] “Fixing a Critical Climate Accounting Error” T. Searchinger, S.P. Hamburg: http://www.princeton.edu/~tsearchi/writings/Fixing%20a%20Critical%20Climate%20Accounting%20ErrorEDITED-tim.pdf
Further information:
- In total, at least 2,400 megawatts of wood-fired energy plants have been announced in Britain: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48574
- Background information regarding Holyhead 300MW biomass plant proposal: http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/angleseyoct2009.php
- Where would the wood come from?
- Last month at the UN-sponsored World Forestry Congress in Buenos Aires, the agronomist engineer Hector Ginzo, an adviser of the Kyoto Protocol, stressed that plantations could not be classified as sustainable. He said UN rules “would never allow of plantation of eucalyptus or other fast growing trees for use as pulp or wood to be considered a sustainable forestry project, because that kind of production favours monoculture forests and the carbon capture is lost when the trees are cut down”.
- Port Talbot – 350MW biomass plant: “Prenergy is commited to obtaining feedstock from a range of oversea sources”.
- Holyhead project: This power station would burn 2.4 million tonnes mainly imported wood every year. This is more than twice the amount of wood which the UK government states can be obtained from increased wood harvests in the UK – yet net imports of wood and wood products already account for about 80% of our use and industrial tree plantations. In the UK, including in Wales, monoculture tree plantations have created acidic degraded soils and have had severe impacts on our biodiversity.
- However, the impact on the global South of the UK’s rapidly growing demand for wood chips and wood pellets will be far more severe, although in this case, they may be primarily indirect impacts. Anglesey Aluminium Ltd have spoken about potential supplies from the US and Canada, however across North America vast numbers of wood power stations are already being built which cannot be supplied without much faster destruction of North America’s natural forests. Across the southern US, vast areas of native forest have been destroyed to make way for pulp and paper tree plantations, supplying much of the US demand for paper. Now, the southern US wants to use that wood for bioenergy, including in the UK. This means that the US is increasingly looking to South America and other countries in the global South for pulp and paper. Tree plantations have already had devastating effects on people and the environment across South America, Indonesia/West Papua and other regions where expansion due to our demand for biomass is likely. More ecosystems and more lands on which local communities depend for their livelihoods will be destroyed as a result of US wood being burned in UK power stations. Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Indonesia/West Papua, Ghana and Argentina are amongst the countries likely to meet future European demand for wood chips and wood pellets.
15 comments ↓
Don’t quite understand why this is happening – you don’t want coal or oil because its a fossil fuel. Check?
You don’t want bio mass because its unsustainable – even through wood grows as trees? Check?
Yet you don’t want nuclear because although its sustainable – you don’t like the waste?
Rather than protesting, wouldn’t you be better off trying to find a suitable solution – because unless we can start getting electricity out of the morning dew – we are going to be at a stalemate for a long time!
Maybe though that is the point? Maybe you actually want us all to be living in a world where nothing works – because we will then all be equal? Ever read Atlas Shrugged?
Until you actually work out your end plan, and let us, the public, know, you are going to get nowhere fast!
Oh, and didn’t someone leak the data last week that showed that climate change was a hoax all along?
Sorry to hear your world just collapsed!
Undercurrents productions filmed the protest this morning and will have video report online very soon. News desks can contact us on 01792 455900
That carbon-dioxide will be released anyway when the tree rots and it will reabsorbed when a new tree grows. Fair enough to protest about the damage caused to the environment where wood is sourced but saying that wood releases more carbon dioxide than coal is to tell a half-truth than people will see through and then reject the whole message.
How much of Britain would need to be covered in solar panels to provide the energy that the biomass plant will produce?
F0ul, Nuclear isn’t actually sustainable either unfortunately. I read recently that 40,000 tonnes are used annual but only 25,000 tonnes extracted annually and the stocks that make up the shortfall are running out.
As for the leaked emails, have you actually read them? I don’t think they showed climate is a hoax.
Yoann
Unfortunately I arrived at Margam Biomass Plant just too late to see the climate camp roof protest but I did see a victorious protestor waving from the back of police car. Was that you? Wales Media were there filming for the BBC Wales (I believe). Be careful of any interviews that you do with them as they have a tendency to be nice at the time and then and edit out your views “carefully”. Our group has had difficulty getting our message across about the unsustainability of these super biomass burners.
Well done for raising the issue. I shall watch the news over the next couple of days with interest.
Regards
Pete Wilson
Well done to climate campers in Wales! It’s a timely action indeed…
The eyes of the world will be on Copenhagen in a week’s time, and we need to remain wary of the path ahead.
It is true that without coal or nuclear it will be a struggle to meet our energy demands but we should not let our guard down when it comes to these false solutions dressed up green alternatives. The wood burnt at Port Talbot comes from affar, creating dependance on a globalised economy and further energy insecurity. It is is heavily reliant on a large land base – potentially displacing communities – and does nothing to address global emissions. It is truly unsustainable.
If Wales wants a sustainable future, WAG would do better to look towards the massive abundance of natural resources on these shores.
Diolch Climate Camp Cymru!
I REALLY can’t understand why you objected to the power station on the grounds of “we need this land for food” What an awful argument. I’m sorry, but my support for you has just ended. Its the kind of argument a precocious 12 year old would make, yet be deafening silent in outlining alternatives.
I was there yesterday and I have to say you lot were a complete joke. The guys who went up the stack got up to the monitoring platform (about 18Ft) and realised how cold it was and came down when their banner got ripped to shreds with the wind.
The guy who then out ran the copper to the roof of the building, was sounding a bit worried when I told him of the steam vents in the vicinity. When I told him to stop being stupid and have a look how high up he was, he looked over the railings and immediately decided that he was getting back down !
Never mind as soon as you all got back home I’m sure you put the heating on and had a nice cup of tea (with the flick of a switch). Then settled down and had a game of Eco Warrior II on your XBox.
Thanks for the effort.
Well done people.
It saddens me to see such an incredible rush to build these absurd plants when the truly renewable resources (sun, solar, wind, tidal, geothermal…….) are continually ignored.
As much as there is no real doubt that climate change is happening and will devastate our world these renewable energies will give us something that the other power stations will not – self sufficiency.
http://undercurrentsvideo.blogspot.com/2009/11/protest-against-biomass-plant-in-wales.html
I happened across this “biomass” power station and couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the piles of logs (not waste wood) being shifted around the site by forklift. Who could deny that this it’s a dumb, stupid idea to burn forests to make electricity, especially when much of that electricity is wasted in useless pursuits (think prime-time television and computer games). Will the wood really come from America? The guy who was passing, on his way to work at BOC, said he thinks most of it comes from Poland (true or not, I don’t know). How much does it cost in money and fuel to transport thousands of tons of logs across countries and oceans, just to burn them? Honestly, something is very badly wrong here. I don’t believe for a moment that the wood is “sustainable” – if there’s money to be made out of it, they’ll keep chopping until the last tree is burned.
Firstly, congratulations on another Direct Action.
Reduce your Consumption and Reduce your Impact!
Large Scale Production of Energy is unsustainable. Much more funding is needed for current low-impact practical solutions NOT research and development!
Micro-energy systems produce less waste and offer a more low-impact solution for individuals and communities.
Get off the Grid. Make your own energy. From Biodiesel to Solar and Wind – and lets not forget the least used of all in Wales – HYDRO. Afterall, it does rain a bit!!
Food Wastes from Anaerobic Digestors, Biofuel from Waste Oils and Electricity from the Elements.
These are all local steps I know, but together they make one global step towards achieving emissions reductions in this age of Peak Oil.
google~skype~twitter: thearcproject
I notice you didn’t publish my comment. Obviously no free speech on here, have you something to hide ?
We can meet all our energy needs from solar, wind and wave sources if Governments the world over would invest substantially in these sources NOW Leave the trees alone and plant more because they are the lifeblood of the planet.
http://undercurrentsvideo.blogspot.com/2009/11/protest-against-biomass-plant-in-wales.html
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