Friday, 13 September, 2002

Country columnist John Sheard sheds a tear for a scrapped alternative energy scheme which could have slowed global warming - and put a few pennies in the pockets of Yorkshire country folk.

IT HAS been a tough week for the Yorkshire willow. Despite a Yorkshire batsman being named man of the test series against India, the county's cricketers still face relegation for not swinging the willow well enough. But there was worse to come...

As politicians and civil servants were leaving the Earth Summit in South Africa with their tails between their legs - having achieved virtually nothing, as we predicted last week - it was revealed that a wood-burning power station at Selby was to be abandoned.

weeping willow

The hi-tech Arbre "bio-mass" station was supposed to produce electricity by the efficient burning of a "sustainable resource" - i.e., wood. Its fuel was to be fast growing willow trees and, because of the decision to abandon the project, several Yorkshire farmers who had planted their land with willow to meet anticipated demand are now left with a crop without a market.

Quite frankly, it makes me weep: with frustration, anger, and dismay. It does not, however, surprise me because, of course, this was a Government backed scheme and it is now becoming quite apparent that when politicians and civil servants get involved in any project which needs inventiveness, capital and confidence in the future, it is doomed to failure.

You only have to look at the state of our roads, railways and air traffic control system to see just how bad this country is at managing its vital infrastructure. But trees have been growing here since the last Ice Age 15,000 years ago. The country was once 95% covered in them. Surely, to grow some more and put them to good use is not beyond our wits.

I thought the Arbre scheme was one of the most promising projects ever launched to tackle global warming - providing, of course, that it could produce near zero emissions, unlike its neighbour, the giant coal-fired power station at Drax which at one time was causing a huge percentage of this country's acid rain.

I liked the idea because it would burn renewable, rather than fossil, fuel. I liked it because it would give landowners and farmers a new crop and provide work for foresters, some of the most balanced people I have met. And I liked it simply because I love trees - as does wildlife - so the more the merrier.

Now, the Department of Trade and Industry has apparently got cold feet. But these appendages have been blocks of ice for years when the subject of renewable energy comes up.

In this every same week, it decided to dish out almost half a billion pounds in a loan to the nuclear industry, to stop it gong bust - another Railtrack in the making. I wonder how many Arbre schemes that would have financed?

How much wave-generated electricity could that have created, for Britain's coastline is an almost infinite source of power - particularly if you could harness both wind and waves off-shore.

That, of course, would be expensive - and perhaps risky - so Whitehall does nowt. Developing the North Sea gas and oilfields was expensive and risky too. But then, of course, that was done by private companies who, almost as a side effect, made Britain rich when the country was about to go broke.

So far, the total sum of this country's search for renewable energy has been a scattering of a few wind farms, usually in areas of great scenic value and against the wishes of the locals, instead of putting them where they should be: on the top of high buildings in the cities where the electricity is consumed.

Yes, this weekend I weep for the Yorkshire willows. There is much more than a few trees, however beautiful, at stake here. Nothing less than the future we bequeath our children's children.