Biofuels
Green Party 'condems' Government for giving go-ahead for Biofuels Plant at Avonmouth
Sadly it was announced last Friday (11th February) that Eric Pickles, the Coalition Government's Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, has allowed the appeal by the company W4B who want to build a biofuels plant at Avonmouth.
This is despite it having been refused planning permission by Bristol City Council a year ago after a sustained lobbying campaign against it by the Green Party and others.
Read more: Green Party 'condems' Government for giving go-ahead for Biofuels Plant at Avonmouth
Biofuels at Avonmouth Rejected by City Council - but the company will appeal...
A company (W4B) lodged a planning application to set up a biofuel plant in Avonmouth - it's actually already set up. It was good to see that the city council threw out the planning application on 24th February. All parties on the council officially opposed it (although the two Tories on the planning committee - one of whom was the chair - along with one Labour member, voted in favour).
However, it is certain that the company will appeal the decision, so the battle to stop it is a long way from being over. The council officers often put pressure on the councillors not to block applications: apparently after the planning committee meeting one council officer complained to a councillor who had objected to the application that they had just cost the city council thousands of pounds because the company would appeal the decision! You sometimes wonder where these council officers heads are! It just shows you that the council officers have too much influence over the elected councillors.
The Avonmouth plant documents relating to the plans are here.
Biofuels need land to grow the biofuel crops, which is madness when there are so many starving people in the world who need food rather then oil.
And of course that's not to mention the deforestation caused by tearing down rainforests to plant palms for palm oil. In South East Asia the last refuges of the orang utan are being destroyed as we speak to make way for palm oil plantations. The orang utan only lives in Borneo in Indonesia and is nearly extinct in the wild. And then of course there's the terrible CO2 emitted by burning forests and the consequences for global warming......
Biofuels for Bristol??
Despite serious concerns about the impacts of biofuels in general and vegetable oils like palm oil in particular on the climate, on forests and other ecosystems and on communities in the global South, as well as concerns over air pollution and public health in nearby areas, biofuel power station planning applications are springing up from a number of companies in several parts of the UK, including Bristol.