Blackshawhead Environmental Action Team’s Finn Jensen commented on Dodgy nuclear documents, that
“Germany plans a 25% reduction in their electricity demand but the UK plans for 50% increase. If Germany can do UK should be able to do the same.”
Here Finn outlines Germany’s “breathtaking” transition from fossil fuels and nuclear power to renewable energy.
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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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York Press reports that the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has just withdrawn Private Finance Initiative (PFI) funding for waste incinerators/Combined Heat and Power generators in Allerton Park, North Yorkshire and Bradford.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.
A 2012 Report by the Association for the Conservation of Energy (ACE) and Unlock Democracy shows how we – the public and our elected representatives in Parliament – have been collectively misled by repeated but unfounded New Labour and ConDem government claims that, without new nuclear power stations, we shall soon be huddled in the cold and dark, and locked into a high carbon energy mix.
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Interesting post Bouncing off the rebound about why it doesn’t make sense to talk about energy efficiency, if we want to reduce energy use, and why we do need to talk about energy conservation.
The argument in a nutshell: increased energy efficiency doesn’t necessarily mean reduced energy use, for a variety of convincing reasons.
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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If you want to see what Calderdale Energy Future Panel are up to, here’s the link to their webpage.
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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The community wind turbine in Blackshaw Head has received its first Feed In Tariff payment. £1611 covered the period November and December 2012. This was for the generation of 5444 kWh of electricity, said Paul Wilson, treasurer of Pennine Community Power (PCP) – a Community Benefit Society with 65 members.
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