UKWIN: "Government can’t defend bias to incineration"

Click above for Britains's 'UKWIN'

or here for the international 'GAIA'.

"Opposition MPs argued for excluding energy-from-waste incinerators from strategic projects in national policy at the 18 July Energy debate.

Andrew Love, Labour MP for Edmonton/London, said:

Incineration is considered in the renewable policy statement, yet it produces significant quantities of CO2. Should it not be re-designated under the fossil fuel category?

Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, added:

"...it was hard to see why they [incinerators] are considered a renewable source."

She’s concerned long-term council contracts to provide waste for energy from waste facilities would discourage waste reduction, reuse and recycling efforts.

Dai Havard, Labour MP for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, said the 50MW threshold for Energy from Waste (EfW) applications to come within the national policy statement (NPS) framework has “almost invited the industry to come forward with applications for huge developments.”

The mega-incinerator proposed by Covanta in his constituency ignores the ‘proximity principle’ he said, whereby waste is treated as near as possible to where it is generated.

The energy minister Charles Hendry said EfW should only be an option after recycling and reuse had been "looked at", and acknowledged the “strong case” for smaller, local waste facilities and technologies such as pyrolysis and gasification which he said the government was “very keen to encourage”. [Why? That's just a different form of incineration - and already approved by Barnet Council for the 'Brent Cross Incinerator' - and it is just a smaller form of Energy from Waste.]

Yet he asserted EfW “must also be seen as part of the waste hierarchy, to which we are absolutely committed, but we must also recognise that the generation option is better than going down the landfill route.”

This sounds desperate – no rational person claims that burning rubble, contaminated soil and glass-rich fines (from Cardiff’s MRF) are better burned than landfilled, or that incinerator ashes are not often better landfilled.

Greg Barker, Under Minister at DECC, was likewise desperate, in claiming that taking EfW out of the energy policy framework would create a “free for all” – called a ‘level playing field’ by those who wish to avoid bias to incineration. Saying this “framework” for decisions “does not necessarily mean there will be automatic presumption in favour of energy from waste”, he was admitting he wanted a strong steer toward EfW.

Charles Hendry did accept Dai Havard’s proposal to meet a cross-party delegation, to discuss the relationship between incineration, planning and energy generation, “delighted” to offer this little morsel to extricate the government from the hole he and Barker had dug."