AHS Energy

Have we learned nothing?

Posted by Edward Wilkinson

 

BBC 10’clock news, Thursday – 3 stories back to back.

 

First, the failure today of the G8 to come to an agreement with emerging nations about reducing future carbon emissions.  Countries like China, India and Brazil said they were unable to match the targets of the existing super-economies because it might hinder their own growth.

 

Next a report from Ghana, where only a fifth of its rainforest is left standing after 50 years of deforestation.  Innovative plans for the replanting of 24 million indigenous trees were shown, but there was criticism of the project, as some commentators felt it unfair for the West to impose the burden of ecological concern on the Third World.

 

And finally, can you believe it, a piece about the efforts of Jaguar – a firm which has been losing £1million a day for the last 10 months - to revive the brand by launching a new model.

 

Apparently some eminent academics place blame for the seemingly unbreakable distrust between the Islamic world and the West on the teaching of history.  In this country we are happy to touch on something of the Roman presence in Britain, a dash of Anglo-Saxon times, a sprinkling of the Civil War, say, and a veritable wallowing in Victorian and early twentieth-Century “glory”, up to the Second World War.  The Middle East takes, let us say, a different approach entirely.  What is important is that there is a fundamental difference of outlook on the teaching of history in the respective regions. At best it does nothing to strengthen ties, at worst it serves to reinforce the feelings of distrust between the two sides for generations to come.

 

And despite this, we are potentially seeing the same thing happening in the environmental arena.  If you were the Brazilian president, why would you take it on the chin when Barack Obama told you to cut your emissions, when the US has single-handedly made the largest contribution to the crisis?  And why would a Ghanaian forester listen to Gordon Brown for even a second, if he knew that GB was responsible for giving the green (apologies!) light to a new, mainly coal-fired, power station that on its own would pump out 8,000,000 tonnes of carbon a year?

 

But all will be well, of course, because if he chops down enough trees, the forester might be able to afford a brand new Jaguar car.

Every Little Helps

Posted by Edward Wilkinson

 

 

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks since the Planning Permission for our biomass power plant in Northiam was submitted. 

 

When I joined Ahs a couple of months ago I little imagined that I would have to host TV film crews, or appear on local BBC radio drivetime programmes, let alone talk to major organisations about the merits or otherwise of nuclear energy.  Whilst still trying to do the day job.

 

There’s passion aplenty in Northiam right now.  I live in a village too, and I’ve seen what a force to behold a village can be when the juices are up.  When plans were revealed for four “affordable” homes to be built slap bang next to the green, there was an almighty row.  It’s a big issue in the South East – more homes need to be made available, but surely not in our back yard.

 

Meetings were held, posters…erm posted, petitions put together.  And then when things calmed down eventually, a decision was made based on the facts of the matter.   People just don’t like change.  It was ever thus, especially in rural England.

 

For Northiam, this is obviously a rather more dramatic development, but the same rules should apply.  Of course there will be emotion, rumour and counter-rumour.  But above all the facts should first be seen for what they are.  As I said I have seen how this works.

 

But I haven’t been the “baddie” before.  I thought I was going to be the “goodie!”  You see, at Ahs we all feel that this is a great project, a great opportunity not just for the South East to have a green landmark for the future, but also for Northiam itself to feel real pride in the same way as the village is rightly proud of Great Dixter.

 

What’s to be done?  I guess we weren’t really expecting the negative response we have had.  There’s a lot to take in – new technology not familiar to many can be pretty alarming.  But as with all new things, once the facts are examined, minds can be put at rest, and that’s our job now.

 

So whilst the day-to-day business of selling woodchip to a host of other biomass projects around the country is being taken care of by the sales team, I am  busy making those facts available.  Here’s one: the power station at Kingsnorth will be sending out 8m tonnes of CO₂ a year and God know what else.  Our little plant at Northiam plant will be saving 13,500 tonnes.  Every little helps, as they say.  If we all did our bit…

The Past Twelve Months

Posted By Nick Guest

The last twelve months have been pretty hectic. Our sales and technical staff are currently very busy putting forward the case for high quality wood fuel to be used as a renewable energy which reduces the carbon footprint. And at present we are working hard to win FSC and ISO 140001 environmental accreditation.

And as the Government's deadlines for the reduction of carbon emissions and the use of renewable energy draw ever closer, we are sure it will get busier..No complaint there.

But in truth much of the progress seems a lot slower than it should be because "the system" is clogging up with far too many Quangos and consultants. In our experience , these two groups are forever being paid vast amounts of money to carry out research into the wood fuel market and supply chain. And this research seems to be being carried out time and time again. How do we know? Because we are constantly being asked the same old questions, and some time later a new report appears with the same old results.

I would love to know how much money, spent in this way, has been wasted over the last 5 years, and how many public buildings could now be using alternative energy if they had had the money instead.

Just last month , we were sent by a consultant a new survey commissioned by the Forestry commission. Call me old-fashioned, but did anyone think for a second that a good afternoon spent on Google, reading old reports or calling us or our competitors might have produced the answers they needed and saved a lot of cash at the same time.

There seems to be masses of organisations that have been set up with the sole aim of dishing out grants of behalf of Central Government, some very good grants are handed out and they have a positive effect on the industry but there are many many grants being handed out which would appear too many as being a waste of public money.

We also feel that encouraging good forest management is vital in supporting the supply chain in the biomass wood fuel industry, but it is by no means the whole picture. Woodland owners will always be happy to receive a grant, but the money would be infinitely better spent encouraging them to work with fuel providers, rather than setting up to be fuel suppliers. The future success of the wood fuel industry depends on companies putting in place the infrastructure to handle the demands of customers such as Hospitals, airports etc in the same way as they are used to with current energy supplies

The forestry Commission also has a important role in helping to promote the use of timber for biomass from it's own managed forests, its not just up to the private woodland owners.

Many of the regions are extremely progressive but much work still needs to be done to encourage a healthy biomass industry. For example: the Commission transports large volumes of chip wood over long distances around the UK, this seems senseless and surely it would be far better to encourage use of this within a 50 or 60 mile radius to reduce carbon footprints etc.

It is time for all the talking to stop, and for someone to take responsibility for creating a practical and workable national policy and seeing it through. A grant here, a grant there. It's not good enough, and it can be a obscene waste of money. Much of the expertise is in place and we could end up missing a massive opportunity if we don't sort it...

 

Forest products Challenge 2009

Ahs energy staff members Charlie Jones and Neil Maplesden recently took part in the Forest Products team mountain bike event held at the Coed Llandegla Forest near Wrexham.

30 teams each with four members from the UK forest products industry turned out for what was billed as an exciting, safe and fun day not solely for serious mountain bikers. 

Originally the task was for the teams  to complete a 12 mile circuit of this beautiful forest in under 2-3 hours. The average time of the four members would be calculated to establish the overall winning team.

But on the morning of the event it was decided that it would be much more fun if the teams were to complete 2 circuits---24 miles. It was at this point both Charlie and Neil began to notice that many teams were taking the challenge very seriously and were out to win.

It all started well for Team Ahs but disaster struck when Neil's chain broke. Unable to fix the problem he ended up running and pushing his bike for most of  the circuit but both he and Charlie crossed the line together to complete the race. 

We must congratulate the winners UPM Tilhill, but it was a victory for all those who took part on this really enjoyable day... Charlie and Neil are now both in serious training and looking forward to the Forest products challenge 2010