Biomass PR Fail

We hear on the grapevine that a new PR team has taken over the promotion work for the Forth Energy Biomass project although it would appear that their first attempt to push out some positive spin for the plant has somewhat backfired.

They released a statement to the Scotsman claiming, "that 96 per cent of those surveyed were in favour of renewable energy generation, 74 per cent supported biomass energy schemes, and 73 per cent felt the proposed Leith scheme would bring positive benefits to the area."

Scotsman journalist, Brian Ferguson, did a bit more digging and so it transpired that:

"Forth Energy...later admitted it had collected fewer than 100 questionnaires, and had not kept a record of where respondents were from."

We would also point out that the consultation materials used, were carefully designed to present the development in a positive light, another reason why we should perhaps take the Forth Energy 'consultation' results with a pinch of salt. 

In the meantime, we can also add the SNP MSPs Kenny MacKaskill and Shirley-Anne Sommerville, the Cockburn Assocation, WWF Scotland, Port of Leith Housing Association and The Confederation of Forest Industries to last weeks list of people and organisations that have reservations about the Forth Energy plans. 

Interestingly the Confederation of Forest Industries have conducted some in-depth, independent research on the impact of all the proposed large scale Biomass plants in Scotland, including the plant proposed for Leith.

Stuart Goodall, Chief Executive of the Confederation of Forest Industries warns, "Diverting wood from existing users to large-scale biomass plants will be bad for the environment and bad for jobs - surely the opposite of what governments wish to achieve...If new large users of British grown wood and other wood fibre enter the marketplace, supported by subsidy, then it can only be at the expense of existing users, impacting negatively and disproportionately on sustainability, employment, carbon sequestration, and mitigation of climate change."

If you want to know more you can download:

• The press release - Dash to biomass could damage environment and economy
• The Full Report - Wood Fibre Availability & Demand in Britain 2007-2025

This week we also laid eyes on the response from WWF Scotland to the Forth Energy scoping consultation. It also echoes these sustainability concerns:

"Biomass use is not automatically climate friendly, climate benefits vary widely depending on how and where biomass is produced, and how is it converted to energy.  Emissions related to bioenergy production and use should be subject to full carbon accounting to ensure that bioenergy is delivering real climate benefits.  

The EIA should assess the environmental impacts arising from the fact that “the majority of the fuel will be procured from overseas” and compare these to the predicted impacts of sourcing as much of the fuel as possible from within Scotland."

We've also been sent the Cockburn Association response to the Forth Energy scoping document. Our chosen key quote from their response is this one:

"The proposed location in Leith Docks would also severely affect the current Local Plan for Edinburgh and the strategies endorsed in the current Regional Structure Plan to meet a significant part of Edinburgh’s future housing need from high density developments on brownfield land in the Docks. These strategies include the proposed tram link, school provision, parkland and retailing. Siting a large bio-mass generator in such a location would be completely counter-productive to those well-considered strategies. It would also contradict Forth Ports own masterplan for the Eastern Docks area, which we attended presentations on less than two years ago, and which was recently granted planning permission. This envisaged no freight traffic into the Eastern Docks at all within ten years, with marinas and recreational uses prominent. A major industrial use continuing in such a location would jeopardise the whole logic and integrity of that masterplan."

And if that wasn't enough Keith Anderson, Chief Executive of Port Of Leith Housing Assocation saw fit to point out in this letter to the Evening News:

"Other European cities which have operated biomass power plants very successfully have found that these tend to work best where the scale is somewhat smaller (i.e. no greater than about half the size of the current proposal). 

 For these reasons, the proposal as it stands raises a number of questions. For example, has consideration been given to alternative locations within Leith? We would like to know why there is a need for a plant on this scale, which must not be allowed to dominate the spectacular Edinburgh waterfront setting."

It seems that it's going to take more than a new PR team to convince anyone that the current proposals are not too big, in the wrong place, and worthy of the massive 'green energy' public subsidy that the plant will receive. We look forward to seeing how much heed Forth Energy have paid to of all these concerns when they publish their full planning application in due course.

And, for the record, we did contact the new Forth Energy PR team, and Turley Associates, who conducted the consultation on behalf of Forth Energy, to ask them for a detailed breakdown of the consultation responses they received, and the format of the materials they used. To date, we have not received any information from them, so we can only go by what we read in the paper.

Comments

[Lucy]

Just wondering if you know the names of the PR teams mentioned above?

[Ally]

First Forth Energy seemed to be doing it themselves, then for a while Scottish and Southern Energy were doing it. Recently there's another firm involved. Perhaps it's a hard sell?