Green light for Cotswolds 'eco' service station?

Plans to develop Britain’s greenest service station by 2013 are set to go ahead in the Cotswolds, on Junctions 11 and 12 on the M5. Pinpointed as a ‘priority area’ by the highways agency, the site lies in a 50 mile gap between services at Ross-on-Wye and the South Gloucestershire border. Aiming to keep carbon emissions at an absolute minimum, the goal is to use five times less energy than a conventional service station and to take at least 10% of their energy from on-site renewable technologies.

The plans of the £35m project include a grass roof, vegetable patch, onsite recycling and composting facilities and a bus service for workers. Charging points for electric cars and bio-fuel pumps are to be featured and the fast food restaurants which are commonplace in most service stations will be banned, favouring local produce and farmhouse roasts, with 70% of meat, dairy, eggs and bakery products sourced from the local area. The ‘Gloucester Gateway’ project will echo its rural surroundings, using timber from the Forest of Dean and aims to blend in with the Cotswold countryside, so as not to create a blot on the landscape.

In addition to its environmental commitment, the company, Westmorland, who have already experienced great success with their service station in Tebay on the M6 in Cumbria, promises to donate around £500,000 a year to local charities over the next two decades.

Those in favour of the project say that the services will bring in around 300 jobs when completed, plus 200 temporary jobs in the construction phase. Local farms should also see a boost in trade, as the aim is to source much of its produce from a 30 mile radius.

However, following meetings with Stroud district council, environmental groups are fiercely opposing the ‘eco-service-station’, claiming that the development will scar the surrounding landscape on the site at Onger's Farm, Brookthorpe (a designated area of outstanding natural beauty), and fear that by improving facilities for motorists and, it will in-fact encourage more people to drive and potentially even attract them to visit the new attraction. In addition, the carbon emissions and noise pollution produced during construction will disrupt wildlife habitats and further damage the environment.

A disapproving Gloucestershire Green Party Councillor, John Marjoram, expressed that, despite an ‘eco-friendly design’, it was, nonetheless, still a motorway service station, designed to make car travel more convenient, a view shared by the site's editor, Mark Goodge, who described the controversial idea of an environmentally friendly service station as an oxymoron.

Lucy's article was also featured on www.responsibletravelnews.com

Image taken from thetraveldepartment.co.uk

Palm Oil Biomass Developments: ICOPB 2010

Palm oil, largely used in the manufacture of food products is becoming increasingly popular as an ingredient in bio-diesel and power-station fuel, a use which has massive potential to increase global demand for this already highly contested resource. Whilst the economic benefits are huge to the developing countries of Indonesia and Malaysia, the associated environmental and social impacts are major concerns, as large scale rainforest destruction, depleting orang-utan populations and loss of local land rights and community resources are already serious threats.

Recognising the high and increasing value of their palm oil resources, Malaysia is to host their second International Conference on Palm Oil Biomass (ICOPB) on the third of August this year in the capital, Kuala Lumpa. The first ICOPB was held in August 2008 and was attended by delegates from more than 17 countries worldwide. Whereas sustainability and renewable materials are considerations, the ICOPB conferences focus on the commercialization, business opportunities and developments for the palm oil industry, the latest findings and potentials for improvements to technologies and the experiences and successes of current business ventures. ICOPB 2008 considered the role of palm oil biomass in sustainable management in line with the Kyoto Protocol and no doubt, there will be expectations for ICOPB 2010 to make environmental concerns a firm feature in discussions but there are fears that even if the demand for palm oil as a biofuel is directed at sustainably certified sources, the new demand is likely to spur much of the current global demand elsewhere towards destructive plantation development.

The boom in renewable fuel sources has fuelled massive increases in palm oil production. Developing and developed countries across the globe have been quick to start adopting new alternatives to oil and imports of palm oil could reach unprecedented levels if desired levels of production and trade proceed; in the UK the conversion of just one oil fired power station to palm oil could alone double UK imports. The international demand for palm oil for use in bio-diesel has already spurred Indonesia and Malayasia to massively increase the size and number of plantations; by 2020 Indonesia’s oil palm plantations are projected to triple in size to 16.5 million hectares.

Despite the ‘green labelling’ of renewable energy sources, many environmental groups are opposed to adopting palm oil as an alternative to fossil fuel consumption; Friends of the Earth does not support the use in the UK of palm oil as a biofuel for electricity production, except where recycled oil is used. As the world continues to make the move towards new energy sources, it is vital that consumers and decision makers who are influential in creating demand make both environmentally and socially sustainable choices, as well as ensuring that developing nations are not denied the opportunities to progress.

Biofuels: Problem or Solution?

‘Biodegradable’, ‘renewable’, ‘green’; mention a handful of our favourite buzzwords and society breathes a sigh of relief, content in the reassurance that we can continue with our consumptive lifestyles without endangering the health of our precious planet.

‘Bio-fuels’ have tagged a healthy portion of ‘green words’, and many with good reason, but there are core issues that still need addressing to ensure that the latest ‘solution’ to enhancing the greenhouse effect doesn’t merely replace one global crisis with another.

Bio-fuel is energy that can be obtained from biological resources – organic material produced from plants, animals or microorganisms. These can be derived from waste products, such as sludge, alcohol and plant wastage, or crops produced specifically for the purpose. They can take the form of solids, liquid or gases and, due to their organic nature, are biodegradable.

Seen as a replacement for fossil fuels, bio-fuels are being adopted by car users, rail companies, the aviation industry and domestic appliance manufacturers. ‘Bio-alcohol’ (ethanol) and ‘Bio-diesel’ are the most commonly used forms, with the latter taking preference in Europe and ethanol more popular in the USA and South America. Both can be used in existing car engines and mixed with a blend of gasoline or diesel to the desired ratio or used in their raw form.

The positive environmental aspects of using bio-fuels is their reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, in comparison to fossil fuels, providing less threat of global warming and associated negative impacts. A 1998 study by the US government suggested that, biodiesel produces significantly less pollutants than conventional fuels, is largely sulphur free and emits 78% less carbon dioxide than diesel. It has been suggested that biodiesel can cut emissions of carbon dioxide, by up to 60 per cent. In addition, burning bio-fuel does not give off the unpleasant odour associated with petrol and diesel powered engines.

Bio-diesel is easy to use. Existing engines do not need to be modified and the fuel is safer to transport and store than fossil fuels and, on top of a host of environmental benefits, the necessary production of organic matter, needed to produce fuels, could create valuable jobs for England’s struggling farmers… Oh yes, and it’s cheaper to produce and purchase than fossil-fuel diesel.

Sounds amazing! What’s the catch?

You would imagine that bio-fuels would have environmentalists and climate experts jumping for joy, and send oil companies hopping mad. The reality, however, is quite different…

Alongside concerns over efficiency and storage life, the most pressing issue is land; to meet Britain’s fuel demands alone, we would need to utilise over 25 million hectares of agricultural land, in order to grow the raw materials needed for bio-fuel production. The problem? We only have 5.7miilion hectares. So we’d have to source our materials from elsewhere, requiring extensive use of agricultural land and likely to involve widespread deforestation and habitat destruction.

Shifting the focus from using farmland for food, to fuel, farmers may be deprived of cultivating staple foods, holding potentially fatal impacts for poverty stricken regions of the world. Wealthy oil companies have the power to buy farmland for bio-fuel crop cultivation, putting disadvantaged farmers in an uncompromising position. Matthew Brown, former energy program director at the National Conference of State Legislatures, puts this into perspective: “Replacing only five percent of the nation’s diesel consumption with biodiesel would require diverting approximately 60 percent of today’s soy crops to biodiesel production”.

Bio-fuels are still in their infancy, with research and development ongoing, to find the most efficient, cleanest and sustainable models. Many companies are already onboard and bio-fuels have been adopted on a worldwide scale. Bio-ethanol is widely available in rural USA and Brazil, and British filling stations and supermarkets are slowly introducing bio-diesel pumps.

Commercially, big companies are keen to fly the bio-fuel flag and, no doubt, jump on an opportunity to cut their fuel costs. Richard Branson launched one of the first bio-diesel powered aircrafts in 2008 and, in 2007, trialled a 20% blend of biodiesel to fuel his trains. Still in its early days, a small portion of Virgin aircrafts now fly solely on bio-fuels but after a six month trail, a decision was made not to adapt to bio-diesel powered rail, despite an estimation by The Union Internationale des Chemins de Fer that converting the entire Virgin fleet of trains to bio-diesel could cut carbon emissions by 14%.

Bio-fuel production and trade is ever increasing and, of course, has potentially massive benefits for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. So is there a way to source the raw materials more sustainably? They’re looking into it!

At the moment, one problem is monitoring trade. The Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), have suggested that fuel suppliers are failing to provide sufficient information on the sustainability of their sources. A significant portion of the world’s bio-fuel is thought to be derived from inexpensive Indonesian palm oil plantations, well known for their large-scale destruction of rainforests and associated impacts on native and endangered wildlife, primarily the iconic and ill-fated orang-utan.

But the future looks brighter, with the RTFO recognising sustainability and sourcing as major concerns, they are working towards introducing mandatory reporting systems and setting compulsory sustainability criteria, which they hope will take effect by the end of 2010.

You have to ask yourself though, is a new fuel really going to solve the global problems associated with man’s motor powered lifestyles? Perhaps our efforts would be better spent on tackling the root causes of global warming, rainforest destruction and international food crises by facing up to the fact that our lifestyles are primarily what needs to change and that substituting one fuel for another is just a small piece of a greater global movement, rather than a holistic solution.

Photo take from The Danish Centre for Biofuels

Lucy's article was also posted on Responsible Travel News: Biofuels, The Problem or Solution?