No palm oil plant in Bristol!

[RenewableCandy]

Bristol CC throws it out!

Bristol City councillors took the decision yesterday to refuse planning permission for the plant at Avonmouth – despite advice from council officials that they should not take into account the fuel and where it would be sourced.

The biomass plant would ship in palm oil from Indonesia and use it as a fuel to power turbines and generate electricity to serve about 25,000 homes.

A company called W4B Bristol Ltd insists it would only use palm oil from sustainable sources as a temporary measure until it could use an alternative, called jatropha oil.

From the outset, the chairman of the planning committee, Councillor Barbara Lewis (Con, Brislington East) made it clear they could only make a decision on planning issues.

She asked each of the councillors on the committee to confirm that their minds were not already made up or that they been put under any political pressure to vote in a particular way.

The councillors then heard a stream of objections from campaigners who argued that cultivating palm oil was ecologically damaging and caused deforestation in parts of South East Asia.

[Mark]

Further coverage here:
http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/vie ... hp?t=13690