Bristol Green Energy Confusion

Three weeks ago a BBC news story drew my attention to plans for £2bn to be spent on Green Energy projects in the Avonmouth area. The press report gave little info on the details or proposals so I decided to investigate and report on my findings. Unfortunately little information was actually available at the time, so I wrote and published an optimistic post about this – Bristol Invests In Green Energy – with a promise to search a little harder for the missing projects and planned spendings as the figures available just didn’t add up!

I have only recently received adequate information to show how the figure of £2 billion was arrived at, though disappointed, I wasn’t shocked to learn that the actual figure for Green Energy Projects is well under £1 billion, with the rest being various projects that have little to do with Green Energy, and so may  say aren’t actually even green projects. This may just be a question of poor reporting or semantics, but this resulted in a misleading news report that was circulated, published and broadcast without comment or correction by the relevant authorities (BCC & in particular Alan Bailey, Bristol’s Environmental Technology and Services Sector chairman). Was this an attempt to mislead or allow the public to be mislead on green energy plans for the Bristol area.

In summary my investigation, assisted by Cllr. Mark Bailey via email enquiries, showed the following figures used to create the figure of £2billion.

• £850 million in high capacity biomass CHP (Combined Heat and Power) stations by Eon UK and Helius Energy on the Port estate.
• up to £90 million in the commissioning of wind energy generation and municipal waste processing facilities by BCC/WEP.
• Total = £940 million

The remaining £1 billon+ remaining was stated as being divided between “potential £600 million investment by Bristol Port Company to develop a Deep Sea Container Terminal at Avonmouth Docks” and the remainder being the estimated investment in the area by attracting ‘green collar’ industries.

Total of the proposed projects now equal approx £2 Billion. Though without even going into whether the proposed dock development is green, you will have to admit that these latter two proposals are not Green Energy projects. If the original report had not included energy in the title we could, perhaps, accept that the report was not misleading. As there has been no attempt in the last 3 weeks to correct or ask for the report to be amended I can only conclude that the council is content to mislead the public on green issues – A practice often referred to as ‘Greenwashing’.

The £600 million port development that has been included here, it seems, to bolster the figures somewhat. Although many also may wonder how the proposed Deep Sea Container Terminal could be classed as a Green Project. Bristol Port is one of the most environmentally progressive commercial ports in the UK, operating wind turbines to provide 75% of the ports current energy requirement amongst other measures.  Proposals for this new development do appear to contain lots of Green ‘measures’ such as wildlife corridors, conservation projects and a policy of sustainable development. There is also mention of 2 further wind turbines, though it is unclear if these are the ones planned by BCC or additional to them. Further information is available from the Port Company Website, though how a container port can be classed as a Green project is something that is certainly open to debate no matter how many green measures are included. Perhaps next we can look forward to the proposed development at Bristol Airport being called a Green Project as it includes a number of Green Measures!

I woud like to thank Councillor Mark Bailey for his assistance in researching and providing some of the above information.