Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Unnecessary cancellation?

The biomass (or lack of it in Edinburgh!) saga continues.

I've discovered that the 'London Councils' report (erroneously cited as why biomass was being stopped in Edinburgh) on the use of biomass is now actually published - it does identify that biomass plants, if poorly run, can cause particulate emission problems ... but it also states that:

"A toolkit has been produced which provides a means of estimating the scale of air quality impact of wood fuelled biomass appliances of a wide range of sizes and chimney heights. Using the toolkit it should be possible to identify significant air quality impacts of biomass combustion and seek either through reduced emissions or higher chimneys to mitigate the impact."

Sounds like a good reason to pursue implementaiton of the national Biomass Action Plan - and it seems some sensible Liberal-Democrats agree ... see this motion. I'd hope that Mike Russell (the relevant Minister) will support this when the topic is debated in Parliament later this week.

... none of this will be happening imminently in Edinburgh though, as the contract to fit biomass systems in 5 secondary schools and 2 primary schools has been cancelled - by the Lib-Dem Leader of the Council :-(

2 comments:

Deborah Bailey said...

Seems like a good cover up because they don't want to lay out the additional initial capital cost to me!
Perhaps they are going to shut down the buses until they have measured their emissions too?

Andrew said...

Deborah

Good point about the buses - must remember that one ;-)

Andrew