Welsh Government halts new Pembroke power station

28 July 2011

The Welsh Government has told the Environment Agency that it must not give permission to a controversial water cooling system [1] at a new Pembrokeshire power station until a review into its impact on a fragile and highly protected marine wildlife site has been completed.

In a letter to the Environment Agency, the Government has criticised the report that was expected to give the damaging plant the go-ahead, saying there were "gaps in the analysis and logic to support the conclusions reached".

Friends of the Earth Cymru, who in June 2010 submitted a complaint to the European Commission over the handling of the case [2], welcomes the move, but says that the Welsh Environment Minister must now intervene and call in the decision.

The Countryside Council for Wales, the Welsh Government's environmental advisor, also has serious disagreements with the Environment Agency's conclusions, and believes the cooling system should not be allowed [3].

Laura Gyte, Friends of the Earth lawyer, said:

"The Welsh Government is right to have major concerns about the impact this new power station will have on one of Europe's most important wildlife sites.

"We believe the Environment Agency's assessment of the impact this power station will have on this fragile habitat is inadequate and unlawful.

"The Welsh Environment Minister must call-in this decision to ensure this coastline is given the legal protection it requires."

Gordon James, Director of Friends of the Earth Cymru, said:

"This case is now costing public money, and causing more uncertainty over jobs in an area that desperately needs them.

"We have argued from the outset that waste heat from power stations using the imported Liquified Natural Gas should be used productively, as it is at the new gas-fired power station in Kent [4]. But in Pembrokeshire the intention is to dump this heat - which is equivalent to 40 per cent of Wales' electricity demand [5] - into the Milford Haven waterway.

"We should not be throwing away this vast amount of energy, and we should not be damaging this important and precious wildlife site unnecessarily. Industry can only exist alongside Pembrokeshire's magnificent environment if we use the best technology and follow the highest standards."

NOTES

1. The cooling system means that the power station will abstract its cooling water from, and discharge (often bleached) heated water at up to 8.7 degrees centigrade above ambient temperature into, the protected waterway at a scale equivalent to three times the combined average flow of the two main rivers draining into the Haven
2. The European Commission is currently investigating the impact of the power station on the Pembrokeshire Marine Special Area of Conservation, following a complaint by Friends of the Earth Cymru.
3. Permission to build the gas-fired power plant was originally given by the then Department of Energy and Climate Change Secretary of State Ed Miliband in February 2009 - despite objections from the Countryside Council for Wales because of the absence of an adequate habitat assessment, which is required under European law. According to the Countryside Council for Wales:
   "This requirement would not be met because biological interactions would no longer be determined by inherent population dynamics and ecological processes.  Substantial mortality of typical species (impingement and entrainment), changes to habitat structure and function (sedimentology, geomorphology, hydrography, water and sediment chemistry, sediment processes), and consequential changes to inter and intra species interactions.  There would be an annual entrainment (by RWE estimation) of at least 850 million to 1.3 billion juvenile fish, let alone the many other typical species present.  2.9 million crustaceans and hundreds of thousands of fish impinged.
   See  "Pembroke Power - Water Resources: further information in support of CCW advice to the Environment Agency Wales"  11 June 2009.
4. Isle of Grain CHP plant generates first electricity
5. The Friends of the Earth Cymru paper, 'Sustainable Heat Around Milford Haven' shows that the heat wasted by the power station would be equivalent to 40 per cent of Wales' electricity demand.

For further information, please contact Friends of the Earth Cymru on 029 2022 9577