PUBLIC MEETING :Monday, 2nd November, 6.30 pm at the Quaker Meeting House,10 St James St, S1 2EW (near Cathedral tram stop).

Entry is free but we request £2 donation for cost of room. The discussion will be about a  biofuel power station application by the company Rocpower.

Almuth Ernsting from Biofuelwatch will attend the meeting to discuss the implications of Rocpower's plans to build six agrofuel power stations in Yorkshire.  She will also share experience of campaigns against different biofuel power station applications.

Background:

Hargreaves Services, through their subsidiary Rocpower, are planning to build six agrofuel  power stations with a total capacity of 60 MW across Yorkshire. One of them is planned in Ecclesfield, Sheffield.  The planning committee will make a decision during November or December.

Their Wakefield Power Station has already been approved and they are also planning to build one in Baraugh Green in Barnsley.

The company appear to intend to burn virgin (ie not recycled) vegetable oil.  Their Sheffield application does not mention any particular type of vegetable oil, however another similar application of theirs which has been approved in Wakefield clearly states that they intend to burn palm oil.  Given that all the fuel will be supplied through another Hargreaves subsidiary, it seems likely that palm oil will be at
least part of the mix in Sheffield, too.  Three other vegetable oil power station applications have recently been refused by local authorities (Ealing, Newport, Portland), amidst concerns about the impacts on the climate, on forests and peatlands, on communities including indigenous peoples, and on food security.  Air pollution and public health impacts played a role in those three decisions.