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  • Secret letters reveal pulp mill fears

    Secret letters reveal pulp mill fears


    By Conor Duffy for The 7.30 Report


    7.30 Report | abc.net.au/7.30


    Posted 1 hour 5 minutes ago
    Updated 39 minutes ago



    The plan by timber giant Gunns to build a massive pulp mill in Tasmania’s north is the biggest private investment in the island’s history. It has captured attention across the country, particularly during the last election.


    But for years some residents of the Tamar Valley have claimed that the mill would leave foul odours and would adversely affect the region’s wine and tourism industries.


    Last night the ABC’s 7.30 Report revealed new documents that have been secret for four years.


    They reveal that Tasmania’s peak planning body, the Resource, Planning and Development Commission (RPDC), shared those concerns and was worried emissions from the mill could affect the quality of life for the people living nearby.


    In a letter dated July 2005, the then-head of the RPDC, Julian Green, wrote to Gunns chief John Gay to raise concerns about fugitive emissions.


    “These potential emission points number some several hundred,” he said.


    “Although each is usually quite small in volume, their effect in aggregate has proven in all kraft [process] pulp mills constructed to date – of which the commission is aware – to cause significant nuisance and diminution in quality of life for people living in the mill area on many days of the year.”


     


    Mr Green declined to speak with the ABC, but his fellow RPDC member Warwick Raverty said the odours from pulp mills are amongst the most objectionable known to science.


    He said that Mr Green experienced them first-hand 10 months after he had written his letter, during a trip to view pulp mills in Sweden.


    “When we got out of the minibus in the car park, Julian Green very quickly became distressed – he couldn’t breathe,” Mr Green said.


    “I found the odour intensely objectionable and within a matter of minutes, Julian Green was gasping and saying ‘For God’s sake, get me out of here.””


    The 2005 letter from Mr Green went on to say that where the pulp mill is being constructed is a particularly sensitive area.


    “Gunns’ proposal to site the mill in the Tamar Estuary, where air is frequently stagnant and covered by a thermal inversion layer, and within the Tamar Valley air shed – itself subject to widespread concerns over levels of aerial pollutants from other sources – means that the commission must be proactive and take particular interest in this aspect of the proposal,” the letter said.


    It finished with a sternly-worded rebuke:


    “I reiterate that the commission has not had even a vestige of an indication from Gunns, or its consultants that this potential problem – that has been a major source of community nuisance and concern in the two other kraft mills in Australia – firstly exists, or secondly and more importantly, about how it is to be addressed,” it said.


    Gunns defends mills


     


    For its part, Gunns insists it has addressed all the issues raised by the RPCD.


    In another letter obtained by the ABC, Gunns said it would address the emissions issue in its draft integrated impact statement.


    And in a statement to the 7:30 Report, Gunns insisted it had since addressed the issue many times.


    The statement reads: “Fugitive emissions will not occur from the Bell Bay Pulp Mill. Gunns has given extensive evidence, including expert witness statements from some of the world’s leading pulp scientists, as part of the IIS process.”


    “We identified emissions as a concern at the start of the proposal and are installing two extra burners at significant cost to help prevent odours.


    “Newer pulp mill technology has removed the risk of odours from fugitive emissions.”


    However Mr Raverty and other mill opponents insist the issues weren’t properly addressed during the fast-track assessment after Gunns withdrew from the RPDC process this morning.


    That’s disputed by Barry Chipman from Timber Communities Australia.


    This morning local residents in Tamar were calling in to ABC local radio to voice their concerns.


    A Gunns spokesman also called in to say the story was old news.


    Earlier this week, the company announced it had progressed negotiations for a joint venture partner.


    Mill supporters have been hoping construction on the mill will start in weeks or even months.


    Tags: business-economics-and-finance, industry, environment, land-clearing, pollution, timber, australia, tas, bell-bay-7253

  • Major Economies Zero in on Climate Goals

    June 25, 2009, 1:21 pm

    Major Economies Zero In on Climate Goals


    By Andrew C. Revkin


    Reuters has a useful update on the latest meeting of the  Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, which concluded yesterday in  Cuernavaca, Mexico. The article cites a draft two-page text circulated at the meeting, which appears to indicate movement toward long-term (2050) and near-term (2020) steps to curb emissions of greenhouse gases — although with all of the soft language required to get both developing and rich countries on board.


    According to Reuters, the text says, “We support an aspirational global goal of reducing global emissions by 50 percent by 2050, with developed countries reducing emissions by at least 80 percent by 2050.”


     


    Developed countries would take “robust aggregate and individual mid-term reductions in the 2020 time frame.” In that same span, developing countries would make a “significant deviation from business as usual” to slow a rise in their emissions while still pursuing an end to poverty, according to Reuters.


    The next stop for the forum, which was assembled by the Obama administration in a process created under President George W. Bush, comes on July 9 in Italy when leaders of participating countries gather at a meeting on the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit of industrial powers.


    President Obama has pledged repeatedly to make the  United States a leader in efforts to craft a new climate treaty this year. Look for a strong final push from his climate team to get some meaningful language adopted in July.

  • A weather forecast we daren’t ignore

    A weather forecast we daren’t ignore





    It is an old axiom of politics that people do not necessarily engage with an issue until they feel it has some personal impact on their lives. Thanks to the UK Climate Projections 2009 report released by environment secretary Hilary Benn last week, that impact is now clearly laid out.


    The result of 12 years research by Met Office scientists, the report suggests that summer temperatures in London could regularly reach 40C by 2080 and that wildfires, blistering summers, storm surges and crop failures could become common events across southern Britain. In the North, meanwhile, there is a serious risk that winter rainfall could increase dramatically, with devastating consequences.


     


    There are caveats, naturally, about the uncertainties involved in any long-term weather forecasts. But it would be a mistake not to try to get the most accurate possible picture of our meteorological fate. Without that, we will be exposed to major loss of life from heatwaves, flooding and fire. The report is a welcome source of potential guidance over the siting of new flood defences, changes in farming practices and the need for the health service to prepare for the impact of soaring temperatures.


    But there is another factor involved. The report provides a range of scenarios and stresses that the worst can be prevented if carbon emissions are minimised. We still have a chance to control our destinies.


    The key here lies with the development of ways to generate energy cleanly. And of these, the technology with the most promise is the one that will allow us to continue to burn coal, the world’s most abundant fossil fuel, without generating carbon dioxide. That point was stressed by E.On chief Paul Golby last week. He argued that carbon capture and storage (CCS) schemes, in which carbon is removed from coal and buried below ground, may prove to be the most important of all forms of clean energy generation. He is right and the government apparently agrees, hence its recent praiseworthy decision to support CCS development.


    Coal is a filthy fuel. But the world needs to balance economic vitality and environmental security. To understand what will happen should we fail with CCS, we need look no further than last week’s projections report.

  • Have the climate change deniers abandoned us during the heatwave ?

    Have the climate change deniers abandoned us during the heatwave?


    If a UK cold snap persuades climate sceptics that global warming isn’t happening, then a heatwave must convince them that it is




    We’re still waiting. During the cold weather last winter, Gerald Warner, Peter Mullen and a host of other climate change deniers lined up to suggest that there must be something wrong with global warming theory, because some snow had fallen in Britain. Clearly they possessed the mystical ability to divine a long-running global climate trend from a single regional weather event. This clairvoyance could be very useful to climate researchers, so I hoped they would continue to favour us with their insights.


     


    But, to general wailing and gnashing of teeth, they appear suddenly to have abandoned us. Where are these oracles, now that we need to consult them about the current weather event? If a single cold snap in the UK persuades them that global warming isn’t happening, then a single heatwave in the same place must surely convince them that it is. Logic would dictate that the world must now be destined for a century of heating – until the next cold snap, whereupon it is obviously destined once more for a century of cooling.

    It would be sacrilege to accuse these seers of inconsistency, so it can be only a matter of time before they issue their revised assessment of global climate trends. I understand that, pending their pronouncement, Nasa and the Met Office have put their research programmes on hold. Please don’t keep us waiting too long.


    monbiot.com

  • BP shuts alternative energy HQ

    BP shuts alternative energy HQ


    • ‘Beyond Petroleum’ boast in doubt as clean energy boss quits
    • Renewables budget will be reduced by up to £550m this year


     





    A sign at a BP petrol station is reflected in raindrops in London.

    A sign at a BP petrol station is reflected in raindrops in London. Photograph: Luke MacGregor/Reuters


    BP has shut down its alternative energy headquarters in London, accepted the resignation of its clean energy boss and imposed budget cuts in moves likely to be seen by environmental critics as further signs of the oil group moving “back to petroleum”.


     


    But Tony Hayward, the group’s chief executive, said BP remained as committed as ever to exploring new energy sources and the non-oil division would benefit from the extra focus of being brought back in house.


    BP Alternative Energy was given its own headquarters in County Hall opposite the Houses of Parliament two years ago and its managing director, Vivienne Cox, oversaw a small division of 80 staff concentrating on wind and solar power.


    But the 49-year-old Cox – BP’s most senior female executive, who previously ran renewables as part of a larger gas and power division now dismantled by Hayward – is standing down tomorrow.


    This comes alongside huge cuts in the alternative energy budget – from $1.4bn (£850m) last year to between $500m and $1bn this year, although spending is still roughly in line with original plans to invest $8bn by 2015.


    The move back to BP’s corporate headquarters at St James’s Square in London’s West End made sense, particularly when the group was sitting on spare office space due to earlier cutbacks, said Hayward.


    “We are going through a major restructuring and bringing the alternative energy business headquarters into the head office seems a good idea to me.


    “It saves money and brings it closer to home … you could almost see it as a reinforcement [of our commitment to the business],” he said.


    Cox was stepping down to spend more time with her children, Hayward added. “I know you would love to make a story out of all this,” he said, “but it’s quite hard work.”


    The reason for the departure of Cox is variously said by industry insiders to be caused by frustration over the business being downgraded in importance or because she really does intend to stay at home more with her young children. Cox had already reduced her working week down to three days and had publicly admitted the difficulty of combining different roles.


    She will be replaced by another woman, her former deputy Katrina Landis, but the moves will worry those campaigning for more women in business, especially as Linda Cook, Shell’s most senior female executive, has recently left her job too.


    BP has gradually given up on plans to enter the UK wind industry and concentrated all its turbine activities on the US, where it can win tax breaks and get cheaper and easier access to land.


    In April the company closed a range of solar power manufacturing plants in Spain and the US with the loss of 620 jobs and Hayward has publicly questioned whether solar would ever become competitive with fossil fuels, something that goes against the current thinking inside the renewables sector.


    Hayward has also moved BP into more controversial oil areas, such as Canada’s tar sands, creating an impression that he has given up on the objectives of his predecessor, Lord Browne, to take the company “Beyond Petroleum”.

  • The price of climate change

     

    Opponents of Waxman-Markey, when not denying that global warming is real, are resorting to another time-honoured tactic of scaring people with wildly inflated cost estimates. Fortified with alarming numbers from thinktanks, opponents are calling the bill a “tax-and-trade” scheme that would saddle families with an unbearable financial burden for decades.

    One source of these spurious numbers, the Heritage Foundation, claims that Waxman-Markey would reduce GDP by a total of $7.4tn and destroy 1.9 million jobs by the year 2035. A family’s electricity bill would climb 90% and natural gas prices would climb 55%, adding $1,500 to the family budget. An even scarier assertion that the bill would cost families $3,100 was purportedly based on an MIT study – a claim that one of the study’s authors, John Reilly, roundly disputed.

    Opponents reached these conclusions by exaggerating the downside and ignoring the upside altogether. They have overstated the costs of renewable energy, underestimated the future costs of fossil fuels and left out the cost savings of improving energy efficiency. The Heritage Foundation report projects home energy prices will increase three to four times faster than the Congressional Budget Office or Environmental Protection Agency studies, and doesn’t include any benefits from improvements in energy efficiency or investing in new industries.

    The CBO came in with a cost of $175 per household. The EPA projects a lower net cost per household of $80 to $111 per year, and predicts energy savings for US households would lower utility bills by roughly 7% by 2020. Critics often cite the burden on the poor as a reason to not support renewable energy. But the CBO analysis projects a net benefit to the lowest income quintile of $40 per year.

    These savings will come by investing in renewable energy technologies that won’t be subject to the relentless and inexorable increase in fossil fuel prices. The EPA projects that by 2025 two thirds of new energy generation will be from renewable sources.

    We heard similar scare tactics here in Delaware during a recent debate over offshore wind power, when opponents tossed out wildly inflated cost projections, some as much as 10 times higher than official estimates. But citizens and elected leaders considered the benefits, not just the exaggerated cost projections, and Delaware became the first state to sign off on an agreement to build offshore wind power.

    There is one important factor the Heritage, CBO and EPA analyses all leave out: the cost of unchecked global warming, which could be considerable. Global warming will do more than inconvenience a few polar bears. Reduced snow melts in the Rockies and the Himalayas could disrupt agricultural water supplies in the US, China and India.

    As more water is released from ice caps and mountain ranges, rising sea levels could force the relocation of significant populations and disrupt important infrastructure. Here in Delaware, rising sea levels could flood the principal highway and rail line connecting New York and Washington. Water and sewer service for more than half of Delaware’s residents could be rendered unsafe or shut down altogether.

    A bill this complex on a subject this important deserves careful review. But opponents of Waxman-Markey have resorted to distorted analysis, one-sided arguments and crass exaggerations to make the case that we can’t afford to act. More careful – and balanced – analysis leads to the opposite conclusion that can’t afford to wait.