DEMONSTRATION
There is a demonstration outside the Scottish Parliament on 1st October at 1 PM Continue Reading “What’s going on in Scotland?” »

Defra’s very own AD website, billed as “England’s Official Information Portal on Anaerobic Digestion”, is at http://www.biogas-info.co.uk/

The site includes many features, such as an AD calculator, biogas map, report archive, FAQs, information on AD networks, and a glossary.

The AD cost calculator, produced by The Andersons Centre on behalf of the NNFCC, allows the user to “assess the economics of AD facilities”.

The results are comprehensive and include the capital costs, profits and the land required to use the digestate. Also calculated are the cost per kWh electricity, the cost per m3 of biogas, the cost per m3 of feedstock and the percentage return on capital. A sensitivity table ranks the variables that have the greatest impact on business profitability.

Before using the calculator, you are advised to see the associated report A Detailed Economic Assessment of Anaerobic Digestion Technology and its Suitability to UK Farming and Waste Systems, which explains the terms used in the calculator.

The website also features a useful interactive map (that looks similar to UKWIN’s) and links to various reports (see, for example, http://delicious.com/AnaerobicDigestionUK/report+food )

According to the site, advantages of AD include:

• It turns waste into a resource. Instead of sending waste to landfill, we can use it to produce energy and fertiliser.
• It produces fuel. Biogas can be used instead of fossil fuels.
• It produces fertiliser. Fertilisers are made from fossil fuels. The digestate from can replace some synthetic fertilisers.
• It reduces our carbon footprint. The methane produced during AD is burned as fuel, and therefore releases CO2 into the atmosphere. Because it comes from biomass, this does not contribute to climate change. However, if the same waste was left to degrade in a landfill site, the methane produced could escape into the atmosphere: methane has a global warming potential 23 times larger than that of CO2. Therefore, harvesting and using methane from biomass can help to prevent climate change.
• It can benefit many different people. AD potentially benefits the local community, the environment, industry, farmers and energy entrepreneurs and government.

A coalition of local groups spanning Brent, Barnet and Camden has formed to oppose current plans for the Brent Cross Cricklewood (BXC) development, and to win a public inquiry, in advance of Barnet Council’s forthcoming determination of the planning application at a planning committee meeting on Wednesday 23rd September.

The coalition consists of ten residents groups, three political parties, two MPs, one London Assembly Member, three Friends of the Earth groups, two cycling campaigns, London-wide and local transport campaigners, a large local employer and local residents.

This impressive coalition aims to demand and achieve a public inquiry to prevent BXC being built according to current plans.

Lia Colacicco, Brent resident and Coalition Co-ordinator says:

This scheme is unsustainable in many ways, despite the green-wash painted by developers. Our coalition objects to many aspects of the plan: transport provisions, increases in pollution, environmental degradation and lack of social sustainability. The Mayor’s Rules are clear that major developments should be zero carbon emission but the developers say it is not commercially viable

In view of the huge negative environmental impact this regional scale development will have on a wide area of North West London, all our diverse groups have come together to oppose it. We welcome regeneration of the area, but not this ill-conceived pre-climate change plan that has incensed a great number of local people across three boroughs.

Alison Hopkins, Brent Resident on the border with Barnet adds:

This is an attempt to build Manhattan in a suburban setting, destroying much green space and our quality of life in the process. Frankly, the whole scheme is overbearing, and smacks of over ambition, especially in the current fragile economic climate.

This scheme contains outline planning permission for the next couple of decades, for the developers to do what they want. Only an unprecedented Act of Parliament could undo the tremendous power they will gain, if this outline scheme is approved.

Furthermore, the developers have slipped FULL planning permission into what Barnet has always called an outline application. So they can immediately make huge changes, convenient for them, even though they have no commitment to see them through in the years ahead.

The report to the Planning Committee from Barnet Council’s planning officers is not due to be made public until today (Tuesday 15 September), giving only a week for residents and groups to make sense of it. It will be determined by Barnet alongside minor matters at an ordinary monthly Planning Committee meeting.

Over 3,000 petitions calling for the development to be called into Public Inquiry were handed in to John Denham, Secretary of State for Local Government and Communities in June.

IT WAS MADNESS

Incinerator Protest Song Aims To Set Charts Ablaze – less than a fortnight to iTunes release. Continue Reading “Incinerator Protest Song Aims To Set Charts Ablaze – Global Day of Action” »

A public meeting is planned to inform all of the latest news regarding plans for an incinerator in Cornwall

Friday 25th September 2009
St Dennis Working Mens Club
Meeting starts at 7.00

Following the decision of SITA to appeal against the decision of Cornwall County Council to refuse their application for an incinerator, a meeting has been arranged to keep local people informed about recent events. The meeting will provide information about the appeal process and the work of the Council’s newly-formed Waste Panel.

People attending the meeting to speak and answer questions will include Cllr Julian German (Cabinet Member for the Environment, including Waste) and Tom Flanagan (Corporate Director for the Environment, Planning and Economy).

One and all are invited to attend

This meeting has been organised by Cornwall Councillors Dick Cole, Fred Greenslade and John Wood, in association with both St Dennis Against Incineration and St Dennis Parish Council.

In the 12 September 2009 edition of The Bucks Herald we read the following report of the march through the town centre:

26,000 say no, no, no to incinerator in Aylesbury Vale

A protest in Aylesbury passed peacefully through the town earlier today. About 200 people converged in Kingsbury before heading to Buckinghamshire County Council’s headquarters to have their voices heard over incinerator plans.

Almost 26,000 people have signed petitions organised by campaign group Stop Aylesbury Vale Incineration (SAVI) against plans for an energy from waste facility.

Visit http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/STOPAVI/ and add your name to the petition

The Bucks Herald article continues:

Addressed by Helen Howard before the group handed over boxes from parishes throughout the Vale, she said their campaign was not about NIMBYism, but about fighting incinerators anywhere in the country.

The group was formed ahead of Bucks County Council’s decision, due on Monday, when they will announce their preferred location for a facility that will deal with up to 300,000 tonnes of waste every year.

There are two bidders left in the running for the contract, one is based at Calvert to be run by WRG and the other is for Violia in Bedfordshire.

The crowd brought Aylesbury town centre to a standstill with their chants of “26,000 say no, no, no.”

John Bercow, MP for Buckingham and Commons speaker, was unable to attend the rally because the date had been changed due to BCC bringing the decision date forward. However, he wrote to SAVI saying:

I have corresponded with the county council on your behalf. I have written to every member of the county council cabinet to counsel them against lumbering local people with such a facility. I have met the cabinet member responsible for this subject and underlined to him in the most robust possible terms why local people should not have to suffer this unwanted burden and hazard. It threatens to damage our environment. It threatens to add hugely to traffic congestion and the incidence of noise. It threatens to pose a risk to human health. It threatens to make a landscape that is beautiful at present ugly in the future. It threatens to cost taxpayers dear and reduce our quality of life in the process.

Visit the SAVI website for the latest

Dear Editor,

Cllr Tim Young (6 Aug) has robustly defended Colchester council’s formal opposition to the Essex Waste Strategy last May when the coalition took control.  Last autumn Colchester’s Cabinet formally opposed the county’s second bid for PFI funding since 2005.  Well done! Continue Reading “Confusion in Colechester prompts FoE letter to Gazette” »