Public Inquiry for Rose Energy Incinerator

Lisburn City Council have called on the Environment Minister to hold a public inquiry into the construction of the proposed agricultural biomass incinerator by Rose Energy, in Glenavy.

Representives from Rose Energy and Communities Against Lough Neagh Incinerator were at at the Lisburn City Council Planning Commitee meeting on Wednesday evening, held at the council offices headquarters at Lagan Valley Island.

The decision has now been deferred to the Department of the Environment, who should ensure the proposal is rigorously assessed.

Northern Ireland often exports its chicken litter to mainland Britain as a way to efficiently reduce waste and reuse the energy stored in the bedding as no facility exisits in the country. The 1.8m chickens produced each week, create 250 000t of chicken litter annually. Hence the decision by major chicken producers O'Kane Poultry, Glenfarm Holdings and Moy Park, who have been supplying poultry bedding for use as a biofuel to power stations in England and Scotland for a number of years, to join together as a consortium, known as Rose Energy, to propose the first energy plant which will convert agricultural biomass into electricity in Northern Ireland.

The proposed site in Glenavy, near Lisburn, is in an ideal location between the two major poultry processing areas in NI. It is also located next to Ulster Farm By-Products, which will be a major supplier to the plant of one of the fuel sources – meat and bone meal. Furthermore, the plant will serve to reinforce the electricity infrastructure in an area which is currently deficient.

The £100m power plant will have a capacity of 30MW, and could effectively power 25 000 homes, assisting up to a third of the Northern Ireland obligation to source 6.3% of its energy from renewable sources by 2012. The government intends to exceed this figure and achieve 12% and is providing a funding package for suitable green energy initiatives to help develop viable projects.

This development is a viable solution to address the disposal of agricultural biomass, which is now included under an EU directive, whilst also providing an additional source of renewable energy. It will also assist in reducing emissions produced from exporting chicken litter, via road and sea,to mainland Britain.

Northern Ireland Assembly Debate on Issue - 3rd June 2008
Options For Chicken Waste


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New Apple Range a Little Bit Greener

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the latest Apple products available now, and focused on the environmental side of the new iPod nano and iPod touch he said;

Keynote Speech iPod Nano (Time Stamp 24m 20s to 25m 30s)

"We want to be, just really environmental sensitive with these products we ship alot of them. We are constantly worried about reducing the size of the packaging, and the transportation carbon that we spend to move these around the world. But, the biggest thing we worry about are the toxics, and we have an enviornmmental checklist we use internally on everything, and I have to say the new iPods are looking great from this point of view, they are arsenic free glass, they're BFR free, completely mercury free and PVC free. And, they are highly recyclable materials, the aluminium and the glass, high recyclable. So, we are really trying our best and there is more we are going to do in the future, but so far, we think these new nanos are the cleanest toxic free iPods we have ever built."

Keynote Speech iPod Touch (Time Stamp 45m 27s to 45m 47s)

"And, environmentally, the checklist looks a lot like the Nano, arsenic free glass, BFR free, mercury free, PVC free, and again with the stainless steel and the glass, highly recyclable enclosure. So we are really pleased with that."



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