About Agrofuel Power Plants

In 2008 Blue NG gained planning permission to build their first agrofuel power station in Beckton, Newham, East London.  It will produce about 18MW and burn 56,000 litres of vegetable oil a day. This is new vegetable oil, not recycled cooking oil! Plans for a second power station at Southall were submitted in April 2009. Southall is expected to generate 19MW and burn 76,000 litres a day. Blue NG have claimed (but have not guaranteed) they will use locally grown rape seed oil.  They have plans to build another six agrofuel power stations, all on sites owned by National Grid.

Blue NG is frequently in the press promoting their potential use of 'Geo-pressure' as a clean way to generate electricity. For a recent example see The Sunday Times 12 April 2009. In theory, there is 'wasted' geo-pressure energy available to be harnessed in the natural gas distribution network.  But so far, Blue NG has opted not to use it - for the Beckton site their planning application stated categorically that no geo-pressure is involved. It's not clear how much energy is potentially available from geo-pressure at each site, but a straightforward calculation shows that burning 56,000 or 76,000 litres of oil per day is enough to produce nearly all the 18 or 19 MW of electrical power.

Under the UK Government Renewables Obligation, companies producing electricity from renewable sources like solar, wind, hydro get a subsidy. This subsidy is also available for electricity generated in agrofuel power stations. The allocation of  this subsidy as 'Renewable Obligation Certificates' is the responsibility of OFGEM. Just as with agrofuels used for transport, UK taxpayers are subsidising a false climate change solution.

How damaging is agrofuel electricity?

Germany has 1,800 CHP (combined heat and power plants) running on agrofuels. The majority now run on palm oil, the cheapest but most environmentally damaging biofuel on the market. Germany initally intended to power their CHPs using domestically grown rape seed oil. But the market conditions changed when transport biodiesel took off, and it's now more cost effective to use palm oil for power and rapeseed for biodiesel.

We only know of ten agrofuel power stations definitely planned so far for the UK. Although individually they are small compared with a typical coal or nuclear power station, we are very concerned about their environmental impacts both here in the UK and abroad.

Firstly - if rapeseed oil from the UK were to be used for all ten power stations, and each were consuming an average of 65,000 litres per day, the annual consumption would be about 200,000 tonnes. To put this into context:-

1. In 2007, the total UK production of rapeseed oil was just over 2 million tonnes. We imported considerable volumes on top of this. The ten agrofuel power stations we know about will produce about 200MW of electricity - only a fifth of one nuclear power station, and a tiny fraction of the UK's total electricity - but will consume 10% of our rapeseed oil production.

2. One hectare of arable farmland can produce 3 tonnes of rapeseed oil per year. Each power station requires about 6700 hectares, land that could grow food and provide meat for about 25,000 people eating a typical UK diet. Ten power stations would be using 67,000 hectares -  a land area that could feed a city the size of Belfast!

3. In 2008, the area of land designated in England as 'set-aside' was 159,000 hectares (source: DEFRA). To supply ten agrofuel power stations by expanding domestic oil seed rape production would require over a third of this set-aside land to be brought into intensive agriculture. Set-aside land is recognised as a vital habitat for wild birds, animals and insects. Britain already doesn't have enough space for wildlife and some bird populations are in steep decline - giving up yet more set-aside land for agrofuels would obviously be very damaging.

And don't forget - burning rapeseed oil emits up to 70% more greenhouse gas emissions than diesel oil even if it is grown in the UK.

The environmental and social impacts of using imported vegetable oil, typically palm oil, are worse. This Biofuelwatch paper explains clearly why the UK agrofuel power industry is likely to import at least some of its fuel, and why this is more damaging.

Air pollution