Glengarry Action Group

COMMENTS:

No-one in the Glen  opposes efficient Biomass per se;  after all, we already have "our"  hydro dam, and windfarm.   So we like appropriate renewable energy projects.  but the proposed location for this enormous slab of a plant is vigorously opposed because it is so inappropriate.  

It is a great pity that some common sense has not prevailed, at least not yet.  Moving this proposed plant  to a more appropriate location, and providing usable heat output, would remove almost all the negative impacts, and would avoid casting a blight on this small and historic model village, which is so heavily dependent on tourism.   No surprise then that there were 123 objections to the proposal from NEDL.  Of course, plenty jobs were promised initially - a powerful lure indeed.  But now it seems,  the lure of jobs has  been shown to be just that - a lure.

Well, what about NEDL's track record - surely there is evidence on pursuit of efficiency and on job creation there?  Again, no.  Mr Tikell's company has never built any such plant in Scotland as far as I know, although they have permission granted for two so far,  dating back eighteen months,  and they did withdraw a proposal to build a third one near Benderloch, after much public discussion and opposition there.  They have never run one, as far as I know.  If their application succeeds, they will likely not run this one either.  And there is nothing intrinsically wrong with any of that.  But there is no evidence available there to support hypothetical job calculations, either.

So what was that,  about promised jobs?

Well at least it's green, and highly efficient? That is what we were originally told.  Wrong again.  Wartsila Biopower 5 is the proposed power unit - Wartsila says it is 23% efficient.  And a lot of heat goes up the chimney.  19.5 MWth in, 4.5 MWe out.  
Ho-hum.