Rob Edwards

Revealed: the dirty coal wars being waged in Canonbie

from Sunday Herald, 30 June 2013

Scotland’s largest private landowner, Richard the 10th Duke of Buccleuch, has become embroiled in a fierce battle with an Australian company over who should profit from exploiting potentially huge underground coal reserves.

An eleventh-hour intervention by the Duke’s staff forced Dumfries and Galloway Council to withdraw a bid by Melbourne-based New Age Exploration (NAE) to do exploratory drilling for coal at Canonbie, near the English border. Buccleuch Estate has its own, conflicting plans for extracting gas from the same coalbed.

The estate has been accused by a local councillor of “bullying” NAE to protect its commercial interests. But the estate insists the allegation is unfounded, and that it was just exercising its legitimate rights.

The Canonbie coal wars are erupting as the coal industry elsewhere in Scotland is collapsing. Two companies have gone bust, leaving as many as 15 opencast mines across the country without enough money to clean them up. 

Environmental groups, local communities and leading politicians have called for a ban on new coal developments until the crisis is resolved. “Dumfries and Galloway seems to be in a world of its own where companies are competing to rip yet more fossil fuels out of the ground,” said Dr Richard Dixon, director of Friends of the Earth Scotland.

The climate pollution that could come from exploiting underground gas

from Sunday Herald, 30 June 2013

Draft plans to exploit underground gas in central Scotland will permit tens of thousands of tonnes of climate pollution to be released into the atmosphere over 25 years, the Sunday Herald can reveal.

An official field development plan drawn up last year for Dart Energy’s disputed coalbed methane project at Airth near Falkirk says that it will be allowed to release up to five tonnes of gas a day for safety reasons. The Australian company will also be able to burn off gas in flares “on an emergency basis”.

That means that a maximum of just over 1,800 tonnes of methane could be released in a year, and up to 45,000 tonnes over the envisaged 25-year life of the development. Scientists say that methane is 25 times more damaging to the climate than carbon dioxide. 

Dart has applied for planning permission to sink 22 wells at 14 sites to extract up to 60 billion cubic feet of methane at Airth. But the application has prompted over 1,500 objections, been delayed by local authorities and is now being considered by the Scottish government.

Last week Falkirk Council agreed to urge the government to hold a public inquiry into the plans, which could cause more delays. Dart, which has recently shed 70% of its staff worldwide, is under commercial pressure to get the go-ahead at Airth, regarded as its flagship project.

Scottish fracking licences to be dropped

from Sunday Herald, 30 June 2013

The only licences to frack for gas in Scotland are going to be dropped, according to the company that holds them.

Australian-owned Dart Energy is in discussions with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) over ending its fracking permits for two sites near Canonbie in Dumfries and Galloway.

That would mean that, in contrast to England, no hydraulic fracturing to extract underground shale gas would be allowed in Scotland. Huge shale reserves were announced across northern England last week, with strong backing from the Westminster government.

But abandoning fracking in Scotland could help pave the way politically for Dart’s controversial plans to exploit coalbed methane using other techniques at Airth, near Falkirk, and at Canonbie, where the company is working with the Duke of Buccleuch’s estate.

Dart said that it had shown that commercially viable levels of coalbed methane could be extracted in Scotland without recourse to fracking technology. The company has been assessing the fracking licences it acquired from another company at Canonbie in 2012.

“We are working with Sepa to alter our permits such that we do not need nor have licences to use fracking for coalbed methane,” a Dart spokesman told the Sunday Herald.

Pollution from planned wood-burning plant will be ‘like two million cars’

23 June 2013

A proposed wood-burning power station will belch as much toxic pollution into the air as two million car exhausts and put public health at serious risk, environmentalists are warning.

Controversial plans for a new £325 million plant at the port of Dundee are due to be considered by city councillors tomorrow. But critics say that hazardous emissions from the smokestack could worsen air pollution in the city, which is already at dangerous levels.

Like motor vehicles, burning wood produces tiny sooty particles and nitrogen dioxide gas, which can trigger breathing problems, heart attacks and strokes. Estimates by government advisers suggest that air pollution could be responsible for 3,000 premature deaths in Scotland every year.

The Dundee plant is one of four originally planned by Forth Energy, which brings the harbour company, Forth Ports, together with the power company, Scottish and Southern Energy. A plant at Leith in Edinburgh was abandoned after protests, a plant at Rosyth in Fife is awaiting a decision by ministers and a plant at Grangemouth in Falkirk was given the go-ahead earlier this month.

If the three remaining plants are built, they will be fuelled by importing a total of 1.7 million tonnes of wood chips and pellets every year from felling forests in North America and elsewhere. Forth Energy claims that this will cut climate pollution, but this is disputed by environmental groups.

Where are the anti-radiation pills meant to prevent cancers? No-one will say.

Exclusive, 18 June 2013

Confusion, secrecy and buck-passing about anti-radiation pills meant to protect tens of thousands against cancers after big nuclear accidents have raised serious questions about Scotland’s plans for keeping its population safe.

Councillors are warning that there may not be sufficient pills available in time, putting people in danger of being poisoned by enough radioactivity to give them thyroid cancer. Young children are the most at risk.

Potassium iodate tablets are an established way of preventing people exposed to radiation from contracting thyroid cancers. They block radioactive iodine released by accidents from contaminating the thyroid gland. 

According to the World Health Organisation, the radioactive iodine scattered over Ukraine, Belarus and Russia after the reactor at Chernobyl exploded in 1986 triggered 5,000 thyroid cancers amongst children under 18. They were poisoned by drinking contaminated milk.

Emergency plans for protecting communities around the two nuclear power stations in Scotland - at Torness in East Lothian and at Hunterson in North Ayrshire - include provisions for distributing potassium iodate tablets. But although there are tablets ready for use within two or three kilometres of the plants, it is unclear how populations further away will be protected.

MoD to be quizzed on nuclear bomb crash exercise that went wrong

from The Herald, 17 June 2013

Defence ministers are to face questions this week over an emergency exercise that revealed how Scotland could be left to fend for itself after a “catastrophic” nuclear weapons accident.

An internal report released by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said that the police, fire and ambulance services faced “major difficulties” dealing with a mocked-up motorway pile-up involving a nuclear bomb convoy near Glasgow because they had no help from MoD weapons experts for more than five hours.

At times the response was “disorganised”, the report said, and there were fierce disputes with ambulance staff over how to handle casualties at the crash site contaminated with radioactivity. One victim was declared deal as a result of “considerable delay”.

The exercise was condemned as “shambolic” by the SNP’s Westminster leader and defence spokesman, Angus Robertson MP. “The level of disorganisation, poor communications and breakdown between so many agencies involved in this test is just breathtaking,” he said.

“The report exposes huge safety concerns in the ability, especially of the MoD, to deal with a real nuclear accident. It highlights many potential problems in responding quickly and effectively, and demands questions to be asked of the MoD, which I will be doing at the first available opportunity this week.”

Trump under fire from council for breaking planning rules at golf resort

from Sunday Herald, 16 June 2013

The American property developer, Donald Trump, is facing unprecedented criticism from Aberdeenshire Council for repeatedly breaching planning rules at his controversial golf resort.

The billionaire tycoon, who paid a flying visit to Scotland earlier this month, has applied for planning permission five times in the last 18 months for construction work he has already carried out. He is now being asked to submit a sixth request for retrospective permission.

The applications for Menie Estate on the Aberdeenshire coast include a 141-space car park, a temporary clubhouse, two converted guesthouses with 21 bedrooms, office accommodation, an elaborate fountain, two illuminated signs and a large earthen embankment.

Though the council has approved the five applications, it has decided for the first time to express concern about Trump’s behaviour. Since his £750 million resort was originally given planning permission in November 2008, Aberdeenshire Council has been an unswerving supporter of Trump’s golfing developments.

But a recent meeting of the council’s Formartine Area Committee agreed without opposition to write to the Trump Organisation to express “dissatisfaction with the number of retrospective planning applications”. Eleven councillors sit on the committee, including five nationalists, two conservatives, two liberal democrats and two independents.

Wild flowers are being wiped out by industrial farming

from Sunday Herald, 16 June 2013

Many of the wild flowers that brighten the countryside are disappearing because governments and farmers are failing to protect them, a new report is warning.

Colourful plants such as corn marigolds, field gentians and wild pansies are in serious decline. So are the insects and birds that plants support, including marsh fritillary butterflies, great yellow bumblebees, lapwings and curlews.

The pesticides and monoculture crops favoured by large-scale industrial farmers are destroying the natural diversity of the countryside, the report says. It demands the reform of rural support funding to encourage farmers to help wildlife rather than hinder it.

The report on Scotland’s farmland is being published this week by the conservation group, Plantlife, to coincide with the Royal Highland Show at Ingliston near Edinburgh, one of the highlights of the agricultural year.

The report argues that plants are being wiped out by the “simplification” of the landscape caused by intensive, specialised farming. The number of wild cornflowers has dropped by 99% over the last 40 years, it points out, and arable flowers are declining faster than any other group of plants.

Between 1998 and 2007 the area of enclosed, improved grassland in Scotland increased by nine per cent but the richness of its plant species fell by eight per cent. The number of plant species in the more extensive rough grazing land has also declined.

Scotland could meet its climate targets by eating better

from Sunday Herald New Era magazine, 16 June 2013

Simply changing the food we eat could enable Scotland to stop breaching its targets to cut climate pollution, according to a new analysis backed by experts.

By eating more local organic food, wasting less and composting more, people could prevent hundreds of thousands of tonnes of carbon emissions and rescue the nation’s faltering reputation on tackling global warming.

Statistics released by the Scottish government earlier this month revealed that, for the second year running, Scotland has failed to meet the legal targets it set itself to reduce carbon emissions. Emissions in 2011 were 848,000 tonnes over the target.

But a new report for the award-winning Fife Diet estimates that the scheme’s 5,000 members saved 990 tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2012-13. If everyone in Scotland made similar changes to their food habits, maybe a million tonnes of carbon could be saved.

The report says that most of the carbon savings came from eating organic food, which is produced using less energy. Major savings also came from buying more locally grown food, throwing away less and composting more to produce natural fertiliser (see table below).

Revealed: the fatal flaws in UK plans to cope with nuclear road crash

from The Guardian, 12 June 2013

An emergency exercise has exposed serious weaknesses in Britain's ability to cope with a catastrophic motorway pile-up in which a nuclear bomb convoy burns and spreads a cloud of radioactive contamination over nearby communities.

An internal report released by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) reveals that the emergency services faced “major difficulties” responding to the mocked-up accident near Glasgow because they had no help from key MoD weapons experts for more than five hours.

At times the response was “disorganised”, the report says. Heated disputes with ambulance staff over how to handle casualties contaminated with radioactivity at the crash site caused “considerable delay”, resulting in one victim being declared dead.

There were also a series of other problems, including out-dated, paper-based communications systems, poor mobile phone signals, conflicting scientific advice on health hazards and “confusion” over radiation monitoring.

Nuclear weapons are transported in heavily-guarded road convoys up to six times a year between the bomb factories at Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire and the Royal Naval Armaments Depot at Coulport on Loch Long in Argyll. The trips are needed to ensure that the UK’s stockpile of around 200 Trident missile warheads is properly maintained.

Environment agency under fire for ‘cheating’ to dodge beach pollution

from Sunday Herald, 2 June 2013

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) has been caught out turning a blind eye to pollution, making dirty beaches look clean and putting the health of thousands of holidaymakers at risk. 

The government’s pollution watchdog has been forced to drop a dodge it has deployed to avoid testing popular bathing waters for faecal contamination on days when the contamination is likely to be at its worst. 

Condemned for “cheating” by environmental campaigners, Sepa has been ordered by the Scottish environment minister, Paul Wheelhouse MSP, to correct the way it monitors for pollution this summer. 

This weekend is the start of the official bathing season during which Sepa monitors pollution from sewers and animal faeces at Scotland’s 83 officially designated beaches. Bacteria and viruses in the water can cause ear and stomach infections and, in extreme cases, can be fatal. 

Levels of contamination are meant to be within safety limits first laid down 37 years ago by European law, and due to get much tougher over the next two years. But every year bathing waters breach the limits because of sewers overflowing or waste from farm animals being washed off the land.