The ESB has purchased a sharehold in a floundering UK company that produces small power plants designed to burn waste wood and convert it to green electricity. The state-owned power utility announced its investment of £4.5m to buy the stake saying that Yorkshire-based Bioflame had already received planning permission to build 17 of its small-time biomass incinerators. The firm can process nearly 30,000 tonnes of waste each year and generate enough electricity for 6,000 residences. Most of the plants are typically built alongside waste dumps and burn wood that otherwise would be sent to landfill. Bioflame will ... Full Story

The Government today said that industry work on increasing anaerobic digestion use around the country would be welcome. According to the invitation, the Government believes more steps need to be taken to aggressively launch widespread use of the new technology, which breaks down organic waste using microorganisms. AD can reduce food, farm and other types of organic material waste by converting it to fuel and other energy forms. The UK currently produces 100 million tonnes of waste per year, which if funneled through AD processes could generate up seven per cent of the UK’s required renewable energy for ... Full Story

UK high street retailers Marks & Spencer announced its on track to reach its sustainability goals by 2015, which will make it the world’s first major retailer to go 100 per cent sustainable. According to the grocer’s half-year results, it is inline to meet half of its 180 total sustainability targets by next April, which puts the retailer way ahead of schedule. Former chief executive of the company Sir Stuart Rose founded the scheme, called Plan A, three years ago. So far, since its inception, the company has improved its fuel efficiency by 10 per cent introducing ‘teardrop’ trailers designed to ... Full Story

High street retailers could be wasting as much as £1billion per year on heat keeping shops at temperatures equivalent to Jamaica and letting doors stay open. A study from Cambridge University suggests that stores could save as much as 54 per cent of energy costs by keeping doors closed and turning down thermostats. Furthermore, if two-thirds of the nation took similar measures, the UK could save the equivalent of taking 1.1 million cars from the roads in carbon emissions. Research in London suggests that Britain is losing out on valuable resources as irresponsible businesses allow energy waste to ... Full Story

Plans for a £100 million controversial waste incinerator have been blocked by the government after six years of battling in Perth. The Scottish Government ruled yesterday that the scheme would be rejected, six years after the initial project was proposed. According to MSP Roseanna Cunningham, the decision was the right one for the right reasons. Planning reported Scott Ferrie was at the forefront of the decision to dismiss the appeal after widespread outcries from local campaign groups. In what is now being considered Perth’s longest saga in history, Grundon Waste Management will have to look elsewhere to ... Full Story

New threats to Britain’s wind turbine industry have come in the form of forecasts from analysts that offshore wind farms will slump over the next few years. The revelation could bring the industry’s recent growth to a staggering halt along with the expected 10,000 green jobs that it would have brought with it. Currently, analysts have said that offshore wind farm installation could fall as much as 93 per cent by 2013, compared to the previous year’s increase. The predictions have been based on data such as order numbers for cables, equipment and foundations that are required to install wind turbines ... Full Story

A nuclear waste shipment headed for Germany completed its tricky four-day haul from a reprocessing plant in France on Tuesday, igniting fresh protests on nuclear power that has it Germany’s government. At least 50,000 anti-nuclear campaigners obstructed the passage of the Castor containers for a couple of days as 20,000 police shepherded the shipment through rural Gorleben a day late. The final 20kms of the road trip was stopped beginning Monday night as police removed 3,000 demonstrators that had lined up to block the road leading to the facility. According to protestors, the campaign was fanned by the government’s decision to extend ... Full Story

Sita announced a new scheme to build 10 plants designed to turn old plastic into diesel fuel. The Suez Environment-owned waste company will create 120 jobs and spend nearly £50m building 10 state-of-the-art facilities, which will convert ‘end-of-life’ plastic waste into oil-based petrol. The move will prevent previously unusable plastic waste from ending up in landfill. In what will be Europe’s first plastic-to-diesel plant, the scheme will see 60,000 tonnes of mixed plastics rubbish recycled in to fuel per year. The pioneering technology is made by Irish firm Cynar and marks the first commercially-capable plastic-to-diesel machinery. Chief executive of Sita, David Palmer-Jones said ... Full Story

The Environmental Agency has granted the final permit needed for Viridor’s £150m waste-to-energy facility in Splott, Cardiff. The £150m requires the permit for building permission and now the UK energy firm is free to proceed with original plans. However, local residents continue to campaign against the proposed waste-to-energy incinerator on the grounds of its potential health impact. According to Viridor, it hopes construction will begin next year and the plant will be fully operating by mid-2014. Opponents maintain that the Environment Agency should not have approved the permit saying the incinerator needs tighter restrictions imposed upon it. Environment Agency Wales has already delayed ... Full Story

A new EU directive proposal was presented on Wednesday calling for national plans to be drafted over the next few years, as the international body still has no permanent storage sites for radioactive waste. As plans are made, exports of nuclear waste outside of the EU for long-term storage will be banned. The commission said that current sites are usable for 100 years at most, however, high-level waste created by nuclear power facilities can take nearly a million years to decompose. Finland revealed plans to have long-term hazardous waste storage facilities operational by 2020. Sweden will follow in its neighbor’s footsteps by ... Full Story

Plans for a £20m recycling facility have been revealed in a development that will bring 30 new jobs to Inverness. According to reports, the Iverness Harbour recycling plant will create 30 new permanent positions for skilled workers and bring even more temporary jobs during construction. The facility will also reduce the amounts of waste being sent to landfill by converting it to biomass fuel. The plant will be using a new system called auto-claving and building will be strictly monitored by Scotland’s Environment Protection Agency. Although auto-claving has been used for over a century to sterilise equipment, the technique has just recently ... Full Story

The majority of high-level waste in the UK is currently stored in a site at Sellafield. However, West Cumbria remains in the running for a new deep geological storage facility says a report. The government is seeking a location for high-level waste, such as nuclear waste, in areas like Allerdale, Copeland and Cumbria; all three councils have shown interest in preliminary discussions. In a study conducted by the British Geological Survey, some areas in the North West were ruled out, however, the majority of sites near Copeland and Allerdale were reported as clear. The findings, commissioned by the Department of Energy and ... Full Story