Climate campaigners scale chimney and blockade biomass plant
ECO protesters have scaled a chimney as part of a blockade of the new biomass plant in Port Talbot.
Activists from Climate Camp Cymru targeted the energy station in Longlands Lane, Margam, this morning.
Two of them used bicycle locks to close off the plant's entrance, stopping deliveries of wood chip, and put a banner on the gates reading Biomess.
Meanwhile, two other activists climbed the chimney to unfurl a giant banner in Welsh reading Clean Energy: Dirty Joke.
Protester Melissa Gilbert said the world's largest biomass plant, Prenergy, had been approved for Port Talbot and the second largest in the world was planned for Anglesey.
"In other words, the two biggest biomass plants in the world are going to be built in Wales," she said.
"This is a smaller version of those plants.
"Our main objective here is to get the message out that it's a myth that biomass is a more sustainable alternative to coal. In fact, burning wood is as bad as burning coal.
"We should be investing in genuine renewable energy like offshore wind."
The £33 million Western Wood Energy Plant in Margam opened earlier this year.
It was developed by renewable energy company, Eco2 Ltd, with Good Energies and Port Talbot's Western Log Group.
Ms Gilbert said the protesters planned to leave the site later today once they had made their point.
A South Wales Police spokesman said: "We are attending a peaceful protest at the biomass plant in Margam. There have been no arrests at this stage."
5 Comments
by Mike, Port Talbot
Tuesday, December 01 2009, 2:00PM
“I was there yesterday and I have to say you lot were a complete joke. The guys who went up the stack got up to the monitoring platform (about 18Ft) and realised how cold it was and came down when their banner got ripped to shreds with the wind.
The guy who then out ran the copper to the roof of the building, was sounding a bit worried when I told him of the steam vents in the vicinity. When I told him to stop being stupid and have a look how high up he was, he looked over the railings and immediately decided that he was getting back down !
Never mind as soon as you all got back home I¿m sure you put the heating on and had a nice cup of tea (with the flick of a switch). Then settled down and had a game of Eco Warrior II on your XBox.
Thanks for the effort.”
by John, castell nedd
Tuesday, December 01 2009, 1:31PM
“Well said, Fed Up, Neath Port Talbot. What about Buckingham palace. I remember prince Charles being so upset by the sight of the millennium dome that he had his helicopter pilot fly in a different part as not to offend his eyes. Wonder what our German prince would make of a bio mass plant in his mothers back garden”
by Fed Up, Neath Port Talbot
Monday, November 30 2009, 7:51PM
“We ALWAYS get the fools saying that well we have to do something!! we have to produce clean methods of energy!! Yes we do but NOT ALWAYS IN WALES. Let the English have some of these filthy biomass power stations or huge wind turbines. If you want to secure the electrical energy of the UK for the future and take into account the forecasted increasing demand for electrical energy, build nuclear power stations. Place them in central England and near to the demand for the energy not in Wales. This filthy wood burning power station that's planned for Port Talbot should if it's SO GREEN, build it in Cardiff where the main demand for the electrical energy is required.
People in Port Talbot have suffered ENOUGH for others. We have a stinking Steel Works, had a filthy Baglan Bay Chemical works that killed hundreds with the pollution causing kidney cancers and more, we still have a filthy gas fired power station that no one seems to want to buy and has been on sale for some time now.
Swansea have said no to a biomass power station so why should Port Talbot have the worlds largest is someone having a laugh?
Look if you want cheap electrical energy, create real jobs in Wales , jobs that will be there for some time, then build a power station in the Neath Valley's near to a coal mine. The pollution from a coal fires power station will be less than that from a biomass power station and you don't have the questionable source of wood chip, sea pollution created by more ships delivering the wood. Nuclear or coal that's the options not pathetic wind. Wake up Wales you're sleep walking into a nightmare that you will regret for many years to come - No to more wind and no to biomass in Wales - let the England have their homes further devalued by a filthy biomass power station and their health further threatened by this filthy wood burning power station.”
by DJ, S Wales
Monday, November 30 2009, 3:24PM
“Who cares what a handful of tree hugging loonies get up to?”
by bruiser, neath
Monday, November 30 2009, 3:02PM
“I have every sympathy with all protesters but what are we to do? we are ruining our planet through our past ignorance and now we are trying to repair the causes but we just cannot please anyone we have all got the nimby syndrome, we have to produce power by any CLEAN method whether it is wind, sea or sun.every other method means coal,gas or nuclear the trouble seems that we BRITISH have so much freedom (thank GOD) that we protest, argue and in the meantime it might be to late.”