Activists storm Bath energy firm's HQ
Eco-warriors stormed a Bath energy company's offices today - ignoring the fact that the business is owned by a man who can claim to be one of the greenest men in the city.
Andrew Mercer is building a carbon-free house in Bathampton, drives a car that runs on recycled vegetable fuel, and set up his company Blue-NG with a view to generating energy in an eco-friendly way.
But that didn’t stop climate change activists from marching into his company’s offices in Ralph Allen House in Railway Place yesterday and berating staff.
Thirteen members of Action Against Agrofuels entered the building and attempted to persuade members of staff that the work Blue-NG does is harming the planet.
The campaigners say Blue-NG is planning to build the UK's first biofuel power plants.
Banners were draped from the building and a number of the activists climbed onto the roof of the building.
The campaigners allege that Blue-NG is planning eight power plants which would run on virgin vegetable oil. The activists claim that such power plants will significantly boost the UK's imports of palm oil, which is linked to deforestation and the displacement of rural communities.
Police were called to the building at 11.40am but officers left by 1pm after staff at Blue-NG said they were happy for the protesters to stay in the office.
The protest - which included a man dressed in a gorilla outfit - spilled over into the adjacent Bath Spa Railway Station.
A statement by Action Against Agrofuels said: "Blue NG speaks about using rapeseed oil but has failed to rule out using palm oil."
Jess Leeds from the group said: “Hundreds of civil society groups, many scientists and institutions have warned that biofuels are causing more deforestation, more climate change, more people going hungry and more people being evicted from their land.
"Yet Blue-NG wants to open up a vast new market for vegetable oil in a country which already uses far more than it can produce, making a bad situation even worse.”
The climate change protesters say Blue-NG has been granted planning permission to build its first plant in Beckton in East London and has recently applied for a second one in Southall, West London.
But a spokesman for BlueNG said the protesters were wide of the mark.
“The company was actually in the process of writing a letter to this group because we understand some of their concerns about biofuels, so we have invited them in for discussions. So this protest is very disappointing,” he said.
"We have tried to engage with them over their concerns about biofuels in general. What they have failed to understand is that they are accusing us of planning all sorts of things that we are not going to do. We are a totally green company.
"Our offices are next to the railway station and bus station deliberately to encourage people to use public transport. We only have four car parking spaces and our chief executive, Andrew Mercer, has a car which runs on recycled vegetable fuel. He is building a carbon free house in Bathampton.
"With regards to the biofuel plants in London we have given ourselves green handcuffs and said to the planning authority in London that if we can’t show you we are a totally green company, you can shut us down. We only use vegetable oil from a sustainable source.”
On its website, Blue NG emphasises its green credentials. It says the company was founded “to fight climate change by utilising the sustainable energy potential of gas pressure reduction stations".
The protesters left the building peacefully at 3.15pm.
13 Comments
View all
by Catherine, Bath
Friday, April 24 2009, 11:02AM
“Biodiesel made from used vegetable oil might be sustainable, but this is totally impossible on an industrial scale - there's nowhere near enough of it, and nowhere near enough land to produce agrofuels from new crops.
Companies who promote agrofuels on an industrial scale are formulating greenwash, plain and simple. Agrofuels contribute to deforestation and still emit greenhouse gases when burned - just because a source of energy is renewable, this doesn't mean it's green or sustainable. Companies in developing majority-world countries are producing biofuels instead of the food that their communities badly need, because they get more money out of it.”
by Jon, Bath, England
Tuesday, April 21 2009, 3:29PM
“I quite agree with the commenter pointing out that not all biofuel is bad. Obviously, Biofuel recycled from used chip fat etc is fine - but that is a finite resource, which means that in order to use biofuels responsibly, we need to cut down on the amount we drive. The idea that we can continue with buisness as usual and still avert climate chaos is a myth - we need to drasically reduce the resources we use, not invent (arguably) marginally less nasty fuels to replace oil. I for one would still scale the roof of an oil company AS WELL as a bio fuel company. I think that in this green enlighenment we seem to be going through, a lot of people are trying to cash in with false solutions (carbon trading and biofuels, and to an extent, commercial recycling being the biggest three). Climate chaos will only be averted when we realise that it is not about creating means of sustaining our current lifestyles that will save us, but by learning to cut back a little. For example, I am not opposed to flyling per se. What I am opposed to is the culture in which a buisnessman can hop on a plan in Bristol for his meeting in Edinburgh or Paris in the morning, be back by dinner time, and repeat that several days a week. Only by putting a halt to the excesses of our consumer society, and by challenging buisness as usual 'solutions' to climate chaos can we start to takle the problem.”
by John, Widcombe
Tuesday, April 21 2009, 2:26PM
“I think the eco -warriors are right - cars run much better on petrol than they do on mazola!”
by Mat, Bath
Tuesday, April 21 2009, 10:43AM
“Mixed feelings with such a thing. A couple of years ago they used to climb on oil companies' roofs, now it's down to renewable companies. Honestly, everybody knows that biofuels as such are not a good thing, but bio in general is highly appreciable. If you use waste oil or unused crops instead of rapeseed, you can produce the same things without the problems of food-vs-fuel. And I'm fairly sure that this company was well aware of the fact. So I'm tending to blame the people who set up the demo for not being aware of the fact that there are other biofuels that don't cause deforestation. And by the way, to the one protester down there talking about recycling: I hope that s/he is aware that recycling does not save any energy at all, quite the opposite. Instead of all the recycling lorry fuel, the cleaning, transporting, melting and reusing of plastics that we currently call "recycling", you can produce new plastics with only a small a share of the energy. Sorry to disappoint you there, but the household recycling scheme is the biggest energy waste I've ever seen. There's just one reason it is there: to make people feel better about what they do, although they have no clue whether it's good. Otherwise all the people who drive to the recycling point in their car to bring back a stack of newspapers and three bottles of glass would know that they spent way more energy than they will ever be able to bring back...”
by Ian, Bath
Tuesday, April 21 2009, 8:06AM
“Would you prefer it if they were considering a nuclear station?”