Sure, biodiesel is considered “renewable” in the upcoming building regs. But that won’t stop the backlash against developers who use it.
Yesterday a biodiesel generation plant proposed for Avonmouth near Bristol was rejected 6-2 in planning committee on the grounds of its impact on rainforests on the other side of the globe. Of the 1,121 letters received by councilors in advance of the meeting, only 2 were in favour of the plant.
Strictly speaking, the application should not have been rejected. The plant passed air quality tests and all other material considerations. The chairwoman of the committe went as far as saying she could find no reason to refuse the application and the city’s legal chief agreed. After all, it’s not the job of the planners to consider the source of fuel – that’s OFGEM’s role.
But that didn’t stop the committee throwing it out anyway, at the end of a fiery meeting, on moral and ethical grounds.
Maybe the councillors really were taking a brave ethical stand. May they were just posturing for the cameras, keen to bolster Bristol’s bid to attain the “Green Capital” status. Either way, they must know that the ruling will be overturned on appeal.
But the fact is people are deeply concerned about biodiesel from palm oil. Whether it’s got a “sustainably sourced” label on it is immaterial.
Building regs or no building regs, developers need to think twice before using biodiesel. Not only because of the PR risk but also because there’s every chance that this movement will gain momentum, potentially leading to a change in regulation.
carbon limited 
Biofuel seems questionable even for transport so it seems incredible that it is even being considered for electricity generation or burning in boilers (or Agas!).
And that’s even before we think of the baby Orangutangs, what a sweetie.
Have you debunked biomass heating yet? Trice the CO2 of gas.
Nick
Hi Nick, tell me more about your views on biomass heating.
Hi Casey
Currently writing something on this. Started with concern about rush to install biomass boilers in schools, offices and eco homes (we heat our house with wood!). Seen as zero C and is easy box to tick however if you see tree growth and combustion as sparate processes this changes.
Burning trees (say) emits similar CO2 to coal, about twice as much as gas. But eventual regrowth fixes the CO2 so balance close to zero.
However if you use gas instead but still grow the trees and use for timber not woodchip then can do twice as much heat for same CO2.
If there was plenty of biomass possible then could accept the higher CO2 of wood as overall process would be CO2 neutral and sustainable (all other issues such as particulates, soil erosion, transport etc aside). However can only hope to grow around 10% (figure stolen from Prashant Kapoor’s blog) of UK heating demand so that doesn’t work. Plus all the timber is being snapped up to put in power stations anyway. Our local saw mill just got outbid by chippers for good timber trees. As I think you suggested the heat FIT will lead to a rush to install boilers.
Wish we had gas option where I live, suddenly tankers of LNG from Russia seems more secure than logs!
Happy to meet up for coffee at Ecobuild, probably can’t make the evening meet-ups but I’m there 3 days.
Nick,
I think the end of friday has just got to me as I dont follow your train of thought. perhaps we could all meet up. I/m there on thursday….
Hi Nick
Good to catch up, I’m on AECB stand Thurs. Confident the logic above is sound, I’m certainly not the only person to have made the point but I admit it’s counter-intuitive!
Cheers
Nick
Casey
Assume you have seen Biomass a Burning Issue discussion paper by now, sorry it took so long but we took a lot of time on peer review and then were a bit nervous about publishing.
http://www.aecb.net/publications.php
discussion here:
http://www.aecb.net/forum/index.php/topic,2649.0.html
and on Mark B’s blog etc.
Lots of initial anger from people who later admitted they had not actually read it so worth a couple of reads before reacting.
Appreciate your thoughts.
Nick