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Aberthaw Power Station Tree Felling for Biomass?

Lee the Lemonhead | 02.09.2013 19:36 | Climate Chaos | Ecology | Energy Crisis

We were recently told about the stockpile of thousands of felled trees that Aberthaw are now using for the purpose of their Biomass attempt - but where are the trees from?





A few weeks ago an old friend and former colleague who works in the energy sector let us know that they think Aberthaw Power Station are involved in tree felling for the purpose of meeting their Biomass quota.

With the DECC guidelines for sourcing Biomass very 'loose' it basically means that power companies have a pretty free reign with regards to the material they source and burn.

Not being ones to take this information at face value, we visited the site to see for ourselves (see pics) and sure enough there were stockpiles of thousands of felled trees at the power station which can clearly be seen from outside the perimeter fence - the security at the station noticed us almost straight away and spent the next hour or so following us in their car - at least they didn't try and take our camera!

Anyway, we know they have the trees, and from their own website we know they burn a percentage of biomass - but where the hell are the trees from and what eco-damage is being caused?

We've been liaising with some leading groups in the Biomass area and none of us are aware of the source!

So... if any of you readers out there know any more about this then please let us know!

Twitter: @uklemonhead

Thanks all!

Lee the Lemonhead

Comments

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Possible location.

02.09.2013 21:20

These trees are possibly from the Pembrey Forest and other areas managed by the Forestry Commission. Pembrey Forest is near Llaneli not far from Swansea. This is a forest which is about 8 miles long and is a nature reserve. There are regular tree clearances in this forest and on some occasions over the past two years there has been large scale clearances involving many hundreds of trees.

The clearances in Pembrey are fairly regular, and also fairly annoying is there is often no obvious need for it. Most of those trees are ferns so they don't provide a canopy as such.

Pembrey is possibly the place where these trees are taken from. I can't say that its a certainty. Its more than likely those trees are from many different projects managed by the Forestry Commision.

But it is certainly interesting that you post these pictures. I had no idea that the Forestry Commision's various nature preservation projects had such a commercial dimension to them!

 http://ryanmthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/penybedd-forest-pembrey.html

Terry