Untreated sewage and cyanide kill thousands of fish in river Trent

Those responsible for leak into river between Stoke-on-Trent and Yoxall face unlimited fines if identified and convicted
James Meikle and Helen Carter
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 7 October 2009 15.02 BST

Environmental regulators today said those responsible for a pollution emergency in which cyanide and partially treated sewage leaked into the river Trent in Staffordshire faced unlimited fines if they were identified and convicted.
Public health warnings were issued as the polluted water made its way downstream from Stoke-on-Trent towards the east Midlands and an investigation was launched into the incident, which killed thousands of fish and threatened other wildlife and pets.
The Environment Agency said people and animals should stay out of the river between Stoke and Yoxall. The Food Standards Agency said people should temporarily stop extracting water privately from the river.
The Drinking Water Inspectorate said public water supplies were not affected because there were no public abstraction points on the affected stretch.
The Environment Agency said the cyanide was thought to be from an illegal discharge which had affected bacterial treatment of sewage at Severn Trent Water’s Strongford works at Barlaston, near Stoke.
A spokeswoman said that effluent released into the river was now at “acceptable” levels. Oxygen had been pumped into the river to prevent further fish deaths. Investigations were under way to identify the source of the cyanide.
David Lowe, the agency’s environment manager, said: “The incident is under control - river water quality is improving. Levels of pollutant in the water have fallen significantly, but we continue to monitor the situation closely.
“As a precaution, people and animals should stay out of the water until further notice.”
A statement from the water company said it had been dealing with “an illegal substance” in the sewers since the start of the week.
“This chemical is completely soluble and as a result it is impossible to prevent it entering and passing through the sewage treatment works.
“The effect this type of chemical has on the works is devastating, both as it passes through the works and pollutes the watercourse and for the company in terms of maintaining the normal sewage treatment operation.”
Simon Cocks, waste water services director for Severn Trent Water, said: “I can confirm that our company is not linked to the disposal of the chemicals.
“Engineers at our Strongford works have been working day and night to get the works back up and running. We are deeply concerned about the impact this chemical pollution has had on our sewage treatment system and the community in which we operate. We are working hard alongside the Environment Agency to support their investigation and minimise the impact of this incident on the environment.”
In Yoxall, the river was sludge coloured and a strong chemical smell wafted across the countryside.
Lowe said the fish kill had affected 20 miles of the river. Anglers had first spotted fish gasping for air “like canaries in a mine” on Monday, he said.
The levels of cyanide were less than one part per million but “aquatic life is very sensitive to poison,” he said.
The cyanide had killed the bacteria used at the treatment works, and a combination of ammonia, from the sewage, and cyanide had killed the fish.
“Teams of people are working in Stoke-on-Trent to try to identify where the cyanide came into the sewerage system and why it happed. We hope to gather enough evidence to bring a case to court.”
It was likely to have emanated from a metal-type industry.
David Matthews, a birdwatcher and environmentalist said: “It is really bad, absolutely appalling. This is bound to affect the birds as well as they feed on insects and peck weeds. Everything is going to be affected, not just the fish.”
Last month, in a separate incident, Severn Trent was fined almost £7,000 after a prosecution brought by the Environment Agency.
The company was fined £6,700 and ordered to pay costs of £2,777.80 at Stafford magistrates court after pleading guilty to causing sewage pollution to enter the Trent.

US threatens to derail climate talks by refusing to include Kyoto targets

Protocol seen as basis for Copenhagen negotiations but America refuses to be ’stuck with agreement 20 years old’More on the climate talks in Bangkok
John Vidal in Bangkok
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 7 October 2009 11.04 BST
The US threatened to derail a deal on global climate change today in a public showdown with China by expressing deep opposition to the existing Kyoto protocol. The US team also urged other rich countries to join it in setting up a new legal agreement which would, unlike Kyoto, force all countries to reduce emissions.
In a further development, the EU sided strongly with the US in seeking a new agreement, but said that it hoped the best elements of Kyoto could be kept. China and many developing countries immediately hit back stating that the protocol, the world’s only legally binding commitment to get countries to reduce emissions, was “not negotiable”.
With only a few days of formal UN negotiations remaining before the crunch Copenhagen meeting in December, and the world’s two largest emitters refusing to give ground, a third way may now have to be found to secure a climate change agreement. Last night it emerged that lawyers for the EU are in talks with the US delegation urgently seeking a way out of the impasse that now threatens a strong climate deal.
In a day of high international rhetoric, chief US negotiator Jonathan Pershing said the US had moved significantly in the last year. “There has been a startling change in the US position. There is now engagement. We have had a 10-fold increase finance from the US. We have put $80bn into a green economic stimulus package. One year ago there was no commitment to a global agreement.”
But he forcefully outlined America’s opposition to the Kyoto protocol. “We are not going to be in the Kyoto protocol. We are not going to be part of an agreement that we cannot meet. We say a new agreement has to [be signed] by all countries. Things have changed since Kyoto. Where countries were in 1990 and today is very different. We cannot be stuck with an agreement 20 years old. We want action from all countries.”
Yu Qingtai, China’s special representative on climate talks, said rich countries should not desert the Kyoto agreement, which all industrialised countries except the US signed up to and was ratified in 2002 after many years of negotiations. It contains no requirement for developing countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions, as both their current and historical emissions are low in most cases. However, China, with its surging economy and rapidly expanding population is now the world’s biggest polluter.
“The Kyoto protocol is not negotiable. We want [it] to be strengthened. We don’t want to kill Kyoto. We really want a revival, a strengthening of the treaty. That can only be done by Annex I [industrialised] countries having a target of 40% cuts by 2020,” said Yu.
“We have an agreement. If you take that away [you remove] the basis of negotiations. There are specific provisions for parties [like the US] who are not signed up to the Kyoto protocol.”
China was backed strongly by the G77 group of 130 countries and the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis), made up of Caribbean and Pacific countries which expect to be made uninhabitable in the next few generations if a strong climate agreement is not secured.
“We face an emergency. We want commitments. We did not create the problem. Any mechanism currently in use is one we want to maintain. National actions are important but they are no substitutes for an international framework,” said Dessima Williams, a Grenadian spokeswoman for Aosis.
The EU, today sided openly with the US for the first time. “We look at the Kyoto protocol, but since it came into force we have seen emissions increase. It has not decreased emissions. It’s not enough and we need more,” said spokesman Karl Falkenberg.
“We are very unlikely to see the US join Kyoto, but we are working with the US to find a legal framework to allow the US to participate and which will allow large emitters [such as China] to participate.”
The difference between the sides is now considered to threaten the success of the talks. In essence, the US is insisting on a completely new agreement, with all countries signed up and all countries free to choose and set their own targets and timetable. Most other countries want to keep the existing agreement as a basis for negotiations, to ensure that rich countries are held by international law to agreed cuts. China in particular wants cuts calculated on a per capita basis.
Diplomats last night suggested that the only way out could be for the US to be asked to sign a separate agreement acceptable to developing countries, which would see it cutting emissions at a comparable speed to other countries.
The G77 countries are meeting to consider their oppositions. One diplomat said: “They are very angry. People have talked of walking out.”
However, lawyers said it would be difficult to terminate the Kyoto protocol because all parties have to formally agree by consensus to end it. In addition, if no further commitment periods after 2012 are established for rich countries, it would be a breach of their own legal agreements.

Sierra Nevada Birds Move In Response To Warmer, Wetter Climate

This adult male Anna’s Hummingbird, Calypte anna, is an urban-adapted species. Unlike many other bird species in the Sierra Nevada mountains, the Anna’s Hummingbird did not track its climatic niche. Instead, it moved away from it. (Credit: Morgan Tingley photo)

If the climate is not quite right, birds will up and move rather than stick around and sweat it out, according to a new study led by biologists at the University of California, Berkeley.

The findings, to be published the week of Sept. 14 in an online early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveal that 48 out of 53 bird species studied in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains have adjusted to climate change over the last century by moving to sites with the temperature and precipitation conditions they favored.

The few species, including the Anna’s Hummingbird and Western Scrub-Jay,

Western Scrub-Jay

that did not pack up and leave when the climate changed were generally better able to exploit human-altered habitats, such as urban or suburban areas, the researchers said.

“In order to conserve biodiversity in the face of future climate change, we need to know how a species actually responds to a warming climate,” said study lead author Morgan Tingley, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management and at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at UC Berkeley.

“Comparing past and present ranges of species that experienced climate change is one of the best ways to gain this knowledge. Understanding how species will respond to climate change allows us to take steps now to restore key habitats and create movement corridors that will help them respond to the changes we have coming.”

The study, conducted in collaboration with Audubon California, a non-profit state program of the National Audubon Society, includes data from a survey of 82 sites in the Sierra Nevada and details the changes in birds’ geographic range over the course of a century. On average, those sites have seen a 1.4 degree Fahrenheit increase in temperature and nearly a quarter of an inch more rainfall during the breeding season since the early 1900s.

While individual species responded differently to environmental change - some birds gravitated towards warmer temperatures while others preferred cooler climes - these idiosyncratic responses were successfully predicted for the majority of species by standard models that scientists employ to forecast the impact of climate change.

The researchers focused on abundant bird species whose range was restricted to the western United States. Based upon information from the species’ entire North American breeding range, the biologists determined the optimal average temperature and precipitation conditions in which the species breed. These conditions are known as the “Grinnellian niche,” named after famed UC Berkeley ecologist Joseph Grinnell (right), who first developed the concept.

The study builds upon pioneering surveys conducted between 1911 and 1929 and led by Grinnell, who was the founding director of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. Grinnell and his legion of researchers methodically cataloged the birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians they observed as they hiked throughout the Sierra Nevada, establishing an invaluable record of wildlife before mining, grazing and agriculture irreversibly altered the landscape.

Since then, global warming has emerged as another threat to Sierra Nevada habitats, presenting an additional impetus for scientists to resurvey those sites, which spanned as far north as Lassen Volcanic National Park, through Yosemite National Park, and south to Mount Whitney. To that end, Craig Moritz (left), UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology and director of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, began the Grinnell Resurvey Project in 2003 with funding from the National Science Foundation, the Yosemite Foundation and the National Park Service.

In many cases, the biologists were able to hike along the same trails that Grinnell and his colleagues walked some 90 years earlier. When comparing modern data with those earlier records, the researchers used statistical methods that minimized false absences of species when cataloging the occurrence of wildlife.

In 2008, 100 years after the founding of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, the UC Berkeley-led team published the first study based upon the resurvey. That study found that small mammals were moving to higher elevations or reducing their ranges in response to global warming.

“When we did the mammal work in Yosemite, we saw some species moving

Dusky Flycatcher

up in elevation, but some did not, and we didn’t really know why,” said Moritz, who is also co-author of this study. “This new paper is giving us a clue about whether or not a species will be forced to shift when climate change alters its niche.”

Some bird species, such as the Dusky Flycatcher and the Green-tailed Towhee, were more sensitive to

Green-tailed Towhee

temperature changes, while precipitation was the motivating factor for the move of species such as the Yellow-rumped Warbler and the Lazuli Bunting. About a quarter of the species tracked were affected by both temperature and rainfall.

Modeling responses to future climate change typically assumes that species will move according to their preferred “Grinnellian” or “climatic” niche, but few studies have directly examined whether those assumptions were valid.

“This study shows the assumptions that underlie existing forecasts of how

Yellow rumped Warbler

species will respond to climate change are valid, at least for most bird species in the mountains of California,” said study co-author and conservation biologist Steve Beissinger, UC Berkeley professor of environmental science, policy and management. “This is alarming because forecasts suggest many species will go extinct with the climate warming that we expect to occur, but it also gives us confidence that costly conservation investments made now based on climate forecasts will have a valuable payoff in the future.”

Tingley said that future studies should determine whether these findings are

Lazuli Bunting

true for other species. “Birds are arguably more mobile than many other species, so it remains to be seen whether other animals will be able to keep pace with future climate change, which is anticipated to be far greater in magnitude and faster in rate than what we have experienced thus far,” he said.

Another co-author of the study is William Monahan, a scientist at Audubon California and a former UC Berkeley Ph.D. student at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.

For information on the Grinnell Resurvey Project, go to: http://mvz.berkeley.edu/Grinnell/index.htm

Source:
Science Daily, “Sierra Nevada Birds Move In Response To Warmer, Wetter Climate“, accessed October 6, 2009

Wind power centre will keep Scotland in vanguard of renewable energy

Peter Jones

Glasgow secured a major jobs boost yesterday with the announcement by Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) that 300 jobs are to be created over the next three years in a new research and management centre for wind farm projects.
The £20 million project also marks a significant step forward in Scotland’s growing research capabilities into renewable energy, which now encompass several hundred scientists and engineers.
SSE said it was joining with the University of Strathclyde, a recognised centre for wind energy, to build a new centre for renewable energy engineering excellence in Glasgow.
The centre, which also safeguards 70 existing SSE jobs in renewable energy, will manage the development, design, engineering, project management, procurement and asset monitoring of SSE’s portfolio of onshore and offshore wind farms in Europe.

The company is in the second year of a five-year programme to invest £3 billion in renewable energy projects by 2013.
Ian Marchant, SSE’s chief executive, said the company had searched throughout Europe for the best site. Glasgow had helped its case, he said, because of the city council’s ambition to make Glasgow Europe’s most sustainable city in 10 years’ time.
While a substantial part of the centre’s work will be in managing the engineering of new wind farms, a significant part will also be devoted to making wind energy systems more efficient and robust, and to researching wave and tidal energy systems.
SSE is already Britain’s largest generator of electricity from renewable sources and, Mr Marchant said: “Scotland’s ambition to become a leader in renewable energy is well known and we are delighted to be making this investment in Scotland.”
The centre adds to a growing list of such research facilities in Scotland ranging from the marine energy research site in Orkney, several alternative energy projects in Aberdeen, to a carbon capture and storage research centre in Edinburgh.
Niall Stuart, chief executive of Scottish Renewables, a trade body, said: “Offshore wind will become a multi-billion pound global industry over the next few years. This announcement represents a significant expansion of Scotland’s technical expertise in this area, and is another important step towards creating and keeping high value engineering jobs.”
The Scottish government is helping with the cost of the project with a £2.8 million subsidy from regional selective assistance funds.

Loss Of Top Predators Causing Surge In Smaller Predators, Ecosystem Collapse

The catastrophic decline around the world of “apex” predators such as wolves, cougars, lions or sharks has led to a huge increase in smaller “mesopredators” that are causing major economic and ecological disruptions, a new study concludes.

The findings, published October 1 in the journalBioscience, found that in North America all of the largest terrestrial predators have been in decline during the past 200 years while the ranges of 60 percent of mesopredators have expanded. The problem is global, growing and severe, scientists say, with few solutions in sight.

An example: in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, lion and leopard populations have been decimated, allowing a surge in the “mesopredator” population next down the line, baboons. In some cases children are now being kept home from school to guard family gardens from brazen packs of crop-raiding baboons.

“This issue is very complex, and a lot of the consequences are not known,” said William Ripple, a professor of forest ecosystems and society at Oregon State University. “But there’s evidence that the explosion of mesopredator populations is very severe and has both ecological and economic repercussions.”

In case after case around the world, the researchers said, primary predators such as wolves, lions or sharks have been dramatically reduced if not eliminated, usually on purpose and sometimes by forces such as habitat disruption, hunting or fishing. Many times this has been viewed positively by humans, fearful of personal attack, loss of livestock or other concerns. But the new picture that’s emerging is a range of problems, including ecosystem and economic disruption that may dwarf any problems presented by the original primary predators.

“I’ve done a lot of work on wildlife in Africa, and people everywhere are asking some of the same questions, what do we do?” said Clinton Epps, an assistant professor at OSU who is studying the interactions between humans and wildlife. “Most important to understand is that these issues are complex, the issue is not as simple as getting rid of wolves or lions and thinking you’ve solved some problem. We have to be more careful about taking what appears to be the easy solution.”

The elimination of wolves is often favored by ranchers, for instance, who fear attacks on their livestock. However, that has led to a huge surge in the number of coyotes, a “mesopredator” once kept in check by the wolves. The coyotes attack pronghorn antelope and domestic sheep, and attempts to control them have been hugely expensive, costing hundreds of millions of dollars.

“The economic impacts of mesopredators should be expected to exceed those of apex predators in any scenario in which mesopredators contribute to the same or to new conflict with humans,” the researchers wrote in their report. “Mesopredators occur at higher densities than apex predators and exhibit greater resiliency to control efforts.”

The problems are not confined to terrestrial ecosystems. Sharks, for instance, are in serious decline due to overfishing. In some places that has led to an explosion in the populations of rays, which in turn caused the collapse of a bay scallop fishery and both ecological and economic losses.

Among the findings of the study:

• Primary or apex predators can actually benefit prey populations by suppressing smaller predators, and failure to consider this mechanism has triggered collapses of entire ecosystems.
• Cascading negative effects of surging mesopredator populations have been documented for birds, sea turtles, lizards, rodents, marsupials, rabbits, fish, scallops, insects and ungulates.
• The economic cost of controlling mesopredators may be very high, and sometimes could be accomplished more effectively at less cost by returning apex predators to the ecosystem.
• Human intervention cannot easily replace the role of apex predators, in part because the constant fear of predation alters not only populations but behavior of mesopredators.
• Large predators are usually carnivores, but mesopredators are often omnivores and can cause significant plant and crop damage.
• The effects of exploding mesopredator populations can be found in oceans, rivers, forests and grasslands around the world.
• Reversing and preventing mesopredator release is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive as the world’s top predators continue to edge toward obliteration.

“These problems resist simple solutions,” Ripple said. “I’ve read that when Gen. George Armstrong Custer came into the Black Hills in 1874, he noticed a scarcity of coyotes and the abundance of wolves. Now the wolves are gone in many places and coyotes are killing thousands of sheep all over the West.”

“We are just barely beginning to appreciate the impact of losing our top predators,” he said.

At OSU, Ripple and colleague Robert Beschta have done extensive research and multiple publications on the effect that loss of predators such as wolves and cougars have on ecosystem disruption, not only by allowing increased numbers of grazing animals such as deer and elk, but also losing the fear of predation that changes the behavior of these animals. They have documented ecosystem recovery in Yellowstone National Park after wolves were reintroduced there.

Collaborators on this study included researchers from OSU, the University of California at Berkeley and New Mexico State University at Las Cruces. It was supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Science Foundation.

Source:
Oregon State University (2009, October 4). Loss Of Top Predators Causing Surge In Smaller Predators, Ecosystem Collapse. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 6, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2009/10/091001164102.htm

Kingsnorth power station plans shelved by E.ON

• Decision hailed by groups who staged Climate Camp protest• Lower electricity demands due to recession cited as reason
David Adam and Mark Tran
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 7 October 2009 21.12 BST
Environmental campaigners were celebrating tonight after controversial plans for a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent were shelved, as the company behind the scheme postponed the project and blamed the recession.
Energy group E.ON said recent falls in demand for electricity had forced it to rethink, but that the plant could still be built if economic conditions permitted.
However, green campaigners were claiming a major victory over what they viewed as in effect a cancellation of the Kingsnorth station, which has become a focus for protest and concern over carbon dioxide emissions and climate change.
In a statement to green groups including Greenpeace, the company said: “We can confirm that we expect to defer an investment decision on the Kingsnorth proposals for up to two to three years. This is based on the global recession, which has pushed back the need for new plant in the UK to around 2016 … we remain committed to the development of cleaner coal and carbon capture and storage”.
John Sauven, head of Greenpeace, said: “This development is extremely good news for the climate and in a stroke significantly reduces the chances of an unabated Kingsnorth plant ever being built. The case for new coal is crumbling, with even E.ON now accepting it’s not currently economic to build new plants.”
Professor Jim Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, welcomed the decision: “This is a step in the right direction. But there must be government leadership to make it truly important. The requirement is to phase out coal emissions, if we want to be fair to our children and grandchildren. We desperately need a nation to exert some leadership, adopting policies to move promptly in that direction. I still look on UK as being perhaps the best hope for leading a fundamental change.
“But as yet there seems to be no government, the US included, with the guts to say what is needed and move in that direction. Instead we hear goals for emissions reduction – what a fake – the coal must be left in the ground or we can never achieve the needed goals for atmospheric carbon dioxide.”
Andy Atkins of Friends of the Earth said: “We’re delighted that E.ON has shelved its Kingsnorth plans – we should be investing in clean energy sources not building new dirty coal-fired power stations. Plans to build this power plant have seriously undermined the UK’s credibility on climate change ahead of crucial talks in Copenhagen. The government must now show real leadership and say no to all new coal plants which aren’t fitted with 100% carbon capture and storage from day one. The UK has one of the best renewable energy resources in Europe, but our record on developing green energy is a national disgrace. It’s time to make the UK a world leader in developing clean power and cutting energy waste.”
At its most far reaching, E.ON’s decision is a blow to government plans to develop so-called clean coal technology, which would trap and store polluting emissions underground. The unproven concept is attractive to ministers because it provides a way to burn fossil fuels while introducing other policies to curb carbon emissions.
E.ON first applied for permission to build the Kingsnorth facility in 2006, but subsequently asked for the decision to be deferred until ministers had decided whether it must be fitted with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology.Earlier this year, Ed Miliband, the environment secretary, said new plants such as Kingsnorth would have to trap and store a large portion of their emissions, which would significantly raise the cost.
How this cost would be met has yet to be decided. The government has pledged funds to the winner of a competition to develop a CCS plant by 2015, in which Kingsnorth is one of three contenders. Ministers have also talked of funding an additional three CCS plants by 2019, perhaps through a levy on electricity bills.
A source close to the process said tonight that E.ON’s move could be an act of “brinkmanship” intended to force ministers to place less of the financial burden for CCS on energy companies.
Ministers have talked up the need for clean coal plants to meet future electricity needs and to help Britain rely less on gas supplies from nations such as Russia.
A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said: “E.ON’s decision to delay their proposed project is a response to the global economic situation and they remain committed to developing clean coal. They have not said they are withdrawing from our CCS demonstration competition and we will be discussing with them the implications for this and for their planning consent application.”
Greg Clark, the shadow climate change secretary, said: “This latest news underlines the chaos in Labour’s energy policy. At a time when the government is predicting power cuts by 2017 its plans for new capacity with carbon capture and storage are disintegrating.”

Europe needs 50bn euros to win green tech race

Europe risks falling behind the US and Asia unless it persuades the private sector to invest €50bn (£46bn) in researching clean energy technologies over the next decade, say EU regulators.

By Rowena MasonPublished: 8:42PM BST 07 Oct 2009
The European Commission yesterday claimed Europe needs more than its current €8bn research funding budget if it is to spend enough on experimental green technology. More than 80pc of this funding is usually spent on agriculture.
Europe has driven the green agenda in terms of tackling climate change, but it risks being leapfrogged by China, India and North America unless there is more investment in early-stage technologies such as carbon capture and storage.
The plea for more money to develop renewable, clean energy sources came as the Crown Estate confirmed it was close to leasing out the Scottish seabed for tidal wave power projects.
Rob Hastings, marine director at the Crown Estate, said tidal licences will be announced by February, but admitted that “there is a need to develop commercial technology”.
The UK state landowner also said it will take at least until 2014 before the third generation of offshore wind turbines begin to be installed.
It is due to award the licences for these projects by the end of this year.
The body, which owns more than half of the UK coastline, estimates that £100bn of private sector funds will be necessary to help meet the country’s target of producing a third of its electricity from renewable energy by 2020.
It also confirmed that the UK’s first plant equipped with carbon capture and storage technology is likely to send emissions by pipe to be buried under the North Sea.
The Government is currently deciding which UK coal-fired plant to give up to £1bn of subsidies in order to trial the untested technology.
If Iberdrola, the owner of Scottish Power, wins the competition, it will pump gas into a disused field owned by Royal Dutch Shell.
If RWE npower or E.ON gets the funding, they will pipe the gas into a depleted field owned by Eni, the Italian oil company.
“There is a desire to store the carbon dioxide offshore,” said Dermot Grimson, a spokesman for the Crown Estate.
“The best places to start, because the geology is understood, are depleted oil and gas fields offshore.”

Plans for offshore fish farms under fire

Environmental groups have attacked plans to establish Scotland’s first offshore salmon farms, claiming the industry is unsustainable and that the measure could further harm seas already at risk.
Marine Harvest is hoping to implement the system as part of a £40 million expansion of its Scottish operations. The company wants to take advantage of the growing demand for farmed Scottish salmon across Europe, where consumption has been rising 6 to 8 per cent annually. It also believes the measure could also help address concerns about the environmental impact of its current fish farms, which are usually located in the relative shelter of sea lochs. Critics claim farmed salmon waste pollutes inland waters and carry diseases that threaten wild stock.
Duncan McLaren, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: “We are unconvinced by these plans. Farming of carnivorous fish is unsustainable as an industry because it relies on a greater input of fish product than the salmon it produces, roughly 5kg of feed for 1kg of fish.
“Moving farms offshore as a means of reducing pollution just moves the problem further out at a time when our seas are under grave threat from climate change.”

Mr McLaren suggested that gaining planning permission for the proposals could be a challenge. “We will be interested to see what the environmental impact assessments find,” he said.
James Reynolds, from RSPB Scotland, also raised concerns. “We would question how sustainable the industry is in its current form in the amount of fish meal that is made to bring the salmon to market size, so if there were measures to increase that we would want to see it happen in the most sustainable manner possible,” he said.
Under the new system, fish farms will be positioned further out to sea, with potential sites already identified in the waters of the Minch, off the Outer Hebrides. Instead of travelling to work every day, staff will live on purpose built barges, and undertake shift patterns similar to those found on North Sea oil platforms, spending eight days on and four days off. Pay has yet to be decided but workers will be compensated for living away from dry land. About 40 jobs will be created in total, with a shore base also to be built on the tiny island of Barra.
Alan Sutherland, Marine Harvest’s managing director, said: “The time is right for the next generation of fish farming. The demand for our product is there and we know the quality is there.
“We have been looking at the opportunities that exist and believe the future of fish farming lies further offshore. This is possible if we use residential fish farms, which we use in Norway and British Columbia, where I previously worked.”
The firm aims to develop four new farms, each costing about £3 million and about three times the size of the average current farm. When completed, they will allow the company to produce an extra 20,000 tonnes of fish per year. The company already produces about 40,000 tonnes of salmon annually, about two thirds of which is sold in supermarkets across the UK.
Steve Bracken, the firm’s business development manager, said the remoteness of the sites would make them more environmentally friendly, as they would be further away from the spawning grounds of wild salmon and trout.
Angling groups gave the proposals a cautious welcome.
Andrew Wallace, from the Association of Salmon Fishery Boards and the Rivers and Fisheries Trust of Scotland, said: “We are extremely interested in this initiative. Offshore production could have minimal impact on wild fisheries.
“However, we are very much aware that the industry wishes to expand to take advantage of the collapse in supply from Chile. If the additional capacity developed offshore does not actually allow the removal of many of the existing inshore salmon farms, which cause so much damage to wild fish populations, then this will not amount to progress.”

Guy Hands fund bids for Novera Energy

Infinis Energy, the renewables company owned by Guy Hands’s Terra Firma, has made a £90m bid for its smaller rival Novera.

By Rowena MasonPublished:
The wind and biomass power group, which was established by the private- equity firm through a demerger in 2006, already had the largest shareholding in Novera, with a 29.9pc stake.
Infinis bought a further 13pc of the business on Tuesday night from the second-largest shareholder, Credit Suisse. Novera’s share price rose 15¼, or 32pc, to 65p yesterday following the 62.5p per share offer.
“The offer is attractive for Novera shareholders, providing certainty, in cash, at a compelling value,” said Infinis, which produces 10pc of the UK’s renewable energy – or enough power for 400,000 UK homes.
However, the board of Novera has already recommended that the remaining 57pc of shareholders reject the offer, claiming that it undervalues the company.
Novera owns two wind farms, 10 hydro-power stations and 46 landfill gas sites.