No to Palm Oil Power Station in Avonmouth

Lead Petitioner: Paul Harrod

Status: new > draft > rejected > accepted > collecting signatures > waiting submission > submitted to council > Pending owner response > closed > withdrawn

Petition

We the undersigned call upon Bristol City Council to reject W4B's planning application for a new power station that would burn palm oil, on environmental and health grounds.

Background Information

W4B have submitted a planning application to build a 50 MW biofuel power station at Avonmouth Docks, which would burn up to 90,000 tonnes of palm oil every year.

The impact of biofuels such as palm oil on the climate, on rainforests and other ecosystems and on communities in the global South is catastrophic.

In Italy and Germany, a large number of biofuel power stations are already operating and virtually all of them run on palm oil which is by far the cheapest vegetable oil. Jatropha oil, also mentioned in the application, is not available commercially so far, yet already many thousands of people in Tanzania, Ghana and India are losing their land, livelihoods and in some cases their forests to jatropha plantations.

If the power station were run on palm oil only, it would require over 22,000 hectares of plantations – and even more for any other feedstock. According to the UN, palm oil is the main cause of deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia. It is responsible for billions of tonnes of carbon emissions, as forests are destroyed and peatlands converted to plantations. In countries like Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Colombia, growing numbers of indigenous peoples, small farmers and other rural communities are being forced off their land, often through violence.

Bristol City Council must consider the climate and wider sustainability impacts of planning decisions.

This means therefore that the development should be rejected.

There is also concern about the impact of the proposed biofuel power station on air quality and thus on the health of the local population, particularly in Avonmouth but potentially also in Hallen Village and Severn Beach Village. There have long been significant concerns over air pollution and particularly PM10 in Avonmouth. The power station will worsen PM10 levels, as well as those of nitrogen oxide and PM 2.5, and will add to the pollution from two large biomass power stations in the area for which plans are currently being considered by central government.*



*text based on information provided by Biofuelwatch