This will result in a reduction of about 3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year in comparison with generation based on fossil fuels. The minister also claims that this plan will create new jobs. Biomass is organic material that can be used to create renewable energy. This includes plants, trees and vegetations, as well as sewage and animal waste. Biomass is ‘carbon neutral’, in that the amount of carbon it absorbs while growing is the same as the amount it produces when burned.

Ms Davidson said “Climate change is a reality we have to face and exploiting a mix of available energy resources is vital. Biomass has the potential to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, whilst at the same time cutting our carbon emissions.”

Consent for the power plant has already been granted and first preparations for construction will be started shortly. Storage of wood biomass Storage of wood biomass Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt, CEO of RWE Innogy: “This transaction enables RWE Innogy to enter the UK biomass market successfully. Overall, we intend to increase the generation of electricity and heat from solid biomass almost five-fold to 600 MWel in Europe by 2011. The UK is an extremely important market for these growth plans. This is why I am particularly happy that we have found a competent and experienced local partner with Helius Energy.”

RWE Innogy and Helius Energy plan to develop additional biomass projects in the UK. John Seed, Helius Energy’s Managing Director said: “I am delighted that Helius Energy has achieved exactly what it set out to do when it listed last year. This deal provides us with the funds to continue our strong and steady progress towards the development of a pipeline of biomass energy projects. We look forward to working with RWE Innogy and exploring ways to exploit the obvious synergies between our respective organsiations in the future.”

The Stallingborough biomass plant is designed for a gross capacity of 73 MWe (65MWe declared net capacity). It will be fuelled with wood residuals or forest biomass. The majority of the required biomass will be contractually secured on a long-term basis. RWE is already conducting talks with companies interested in possibly using the thermal output. RWE npower will provide operations and maintenance services for the plant on behalf of its sister company RWE Innogy, utilising RWE´s expertise as a market leader in power generation in the UK. In July RWE npower announced plans for a 45 MW biomass CHP plant at Tullis Russell Papermakers in Markinch, Scotland.

CHP plants combine electricity generation and heat production, producing significant efficiency and cost benefits. The technology also delivers environmental benefits through lower carbon dioxide emissions.

The new plant is a 45 MW biomass CHP plant at Markinch in Scotland. An £8.1m Regional Selective Assistance grant from the Scottish Government has been awarded to help fund the project. The new facility will supply steam and electricity to the Tullis Russell Papermakers paper mill under a long term contract, replacing the existing coal fired plant.

Phil Piddington, Head of npower Cogen said: “Our plans to build a CHP plant at the Tullis Russell paper mill form an important part of our wider strategy of reducing our carbon intensity, through investment in lower or zero carbon power generation sources. This project is an excellent example of how innovative new energy technologies such as Biomass can be deployed to help the UK energy industry - and individual businesses - to reduce their impact on the environment.”

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond said:

“This is tremendously exciting with huge economic and environmental benefits for Scotland. The Scottish Government has fully supported the partnership working of these two leading, international companies, RWE npower Cogen and Tullis Russell.

“The new biomass plant in Markinch is a significant investment in Scotland and pays testament to our competitive advantage in terms of skills and workforce and the development of energy supplies that are cleaner, greener and economically competitive.

“I am delighted that we have attracted and secured this significant investment. The project complements the Scottish Government’s work to make Scotland a greener, wealthier and fairer place to live and do business in. This announcement points the way to the future and shows the resilience of the Scottish economy in the face of international financial pressure.”

The Combined Heat and Power plant (CHP) will meet the electricity and heating needs of its Goole Distribution Centre.

The new plant will generate 5MW of electrical power – enough energy to run eight Tesco Superstores. All excess electricity will be sold back to the grid.

David North, Community and Government Director, said:

“We’ve set ourselves stretching targets to reduce the carbon intensity of our business, and energy from renewable sources is a key part of our strategy.

We’ve identified five sites that would be suitable for further biomass technology, and are making big investments in wind turbines too.”

Straw is a pure, natural material and a by-product of local farming. As straw is a renewable material rather than a fossil fuel, the CO2 emitted is equal to the amount it has absorbed whilst growing, effectively making the energy carbon neutral.

The plant works by burning straw which powers a steam turbine, generating electricity. The particulates (polluting particles) are then filtered to keep them from escaping into the air. The only waste from the process is ash which can be used by other industries, or passed back to the local farmers to be used as a fertiliser.

Tesco estimates that it will have recouped the £12m set up costs within six years. After this time, energy generated by the plant will cost the supermarket less than is currently charged for grid electricity.

Tesco has set itself a stretching target to halve the carbon footprint of its estate (as at 2006) by 2020. This single initiative will save 17,000 tonnes of CO2, and will pave the way for further investment in biomass energy generation.

Tesco has already made substantial investments in energy efficiency and new low-carbon technologies – investing £86 million last year alone. It is working with the planning authorities to build a number of new wind turbines and recently secured planning permission for two large wind turbines at its Distribution Centres in Daventry. These 90m high turbines will each generate 800KW (peak) of power. It is applying for consent for another three 100m turbines which will each generate 1.25MW.

Building work at the supermarket’s Distribution Centre in Goole will begin shortly, and the power plant will be operational later next year. The supermarket has also submitted a planning application to build a second small-scale biomass plant at their Livingston Distribution Centre.

The new power station will be rated at around 25MW and will produce enough power for approximately 40,000 homes by burning recycled wood in the state-of-the-art facility.

Dave Rogers, E.ON’s Regional Director for Climate & Renewables, said: “We’re delighted that the City Council has given us the green light to develop this project.

“Biomass power stations offer us an exciting opportunity to help combat climate change by using ‘carbon neutral’ products in the place of traditional fossil fuels to generate electricity - further proof of our commitment to changing energy in the UK.”

The plant will displace the emission of around 80,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year, the equivalent of taking more than 20,000 cars off the UK’s roads each year, by burning recycled wood in place of traditional fossil fuels like coal and gas.

Blackburn Meadows is the second of E.ON’s biomass developments in the UK, with Steven’s Croft near Lockerbie in Scotland one of the UK’s largest dedicated biomass power stations.

Staffordshire County Council’s economic prosperity and sustainable communities scrutiny and performance panel will hear on Thursday that the regional development agency is putting £248,054 into the renewable energy project. The total cost of the project is £407,910 and targets are to assist 80 businesses and support two new business start-ups.

A steering group is being set up with involvement from the county council, Shropshire County Council, Stafford Borough Council, Staffordshire Business Environment Network, Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, Cannock Chase District Council, South Staffordshire District Council, Southern Staffordshire Partnership, Keele University, Staffordshire University and Rodbaston College.

The project will build on the success of the Stafford Biomass Project which has seen the creation of a power station at Eccleshall using crops of miscanthus – elephant grass.

This project was started with funding five years ago from the old Stafford single regeneration budget programme.

The aim of the AWM-funded project is to establish Staffordshire and neighbouring Shropshire as UK leaders in renewable technology by developing a renewables business network, showcasing renewable technology and increasing investment in production of biomass fuel.

A Think Renewable Energy event is being staged by Staffordshire University on July 29 to raise awareness of use of the technology in the building industry.

More than 100 companies in the region have already expressed an interest about getting involved.

A corporate brand that can be used in all parts of the programme is to be created.g

“We had to spend £800 for a survey to find newts we knew weren’t there,” said Mr Tomlinson, going on to say “Although the Assembly Government is big on the word “sustainability”, it is very short on action”.The 11,000-cubic metre digester will extract methane gas from slurry from Lodge Farm’s 600 dairy cows – about 20 tonnes a day.

Once up to full capacity, the system should produce enough electricity for Holt village’s 800 residents, with leftover digestate injected into surrounding fields as odourless fertiliser.

Mr Tomlinson had hoped to process food waste from Wrexham Industrial Estate – including 25 tonnes of unwanted mayonnaise each month – but the town’s planners refused on public health grounds.

“We believe that eventually the rules will change but we couldn’t afford to wait for that to happen,” he said.

Mr Tomlinson has formed a new company, Farm Renewable Environmental Energy (FRE-Energy) with brother Jonathan, neighbour Chris Morris and AD pioneer James Murcott.

Jonathan is building the AD plant on site via his agricultural engineering business JFT Engineering.

FRE-Energy managing director Chris Morris pledged it would be the first of hundreds of on-farm digesters built using Welsh technology.

But he urged Cardiff to become more supportive of a technology that is more productive and less intrusive than wind power.

Germany and Austria already have more than 4,500 farm AD plants, equivalent to a nuclear power station. In contrast the UK has around 20.

The Assembly Government dismissed claims it wasn’t supportive of AD. It was the first UK administration to offer an AD grant scheme but it said it won’t back “out-of-date technology”.

Last week the National Non-Food Crops Centre launched a new computer calculator at Cereals 2008 to help farmers decide whether AD is feasible for them.

The plant will produce enough renewable electricity for around 100,000 homes; most of North East Lincolnshire. The plant will save approximately 450,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year compared with a similarly sized coal-fired power station. Options to use the heat produced by the plant either on site or locally are also being considered.

In a statement today, Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks said:

“This is another stepping stone towards powering a greener, cleaner UK. Not only does it help tackle climate change and increase secure supplies of energy, but the building and running of this biomass plant will also provide jobs in Lincolnshire.

“This announcement takes us closer to achieving our proposed renewable energy targets. We have doubled the amount of renewable electricity to 5% over the last few years and later this month we will be launching our consultation on how we can drive this forward even further.”

John Seed, Managing Director of Helius Energy welcomed the news, saying:

“This consent allows Helius Energy to begin to implement our plans for the production of renewable electricity from sustainable biomass. Now that we have been granted consent by the Secretary of State we look forward to working closely with North East Lincolnshire Council to bring this project to completion.”

Construction of Phase I, the biomass energy plant, costing circa £200 million, is expected to start later this year and to be operational by 2011. The site will also incorporate an area dedicated to wildlife conservation.

The biomass power plant will require around 430,000 tonnes of sustainably sourced feedstock each year, with a significant amount coming from the UK.

The Algal Biomass Organisation was officially announced on 29th May.

“Given the social, economic, and environmental possibilities for algae, and the growing number of companies, technologies and products being developed to address them, it is becoming increasingly important to harness their potential for use across multiple industries now,” said Billy Glover, managing director, Environmental Strategy, Boeing Commercial Airplanes, and ABO steering committee co-chair.

“Boeing recognizes that algae biomass holds tremendous potential for use as jet fuel, and it fits into our plan to guide aviation toward commercially viable and sustainable fuel sources – fuels with substantially smaller greenhouse gas footprints that do not compete with food or require unacceptable quantities of land and fresh water resources,” he continued.

The association is opening membership to any parties interested in this evolving area of research, development and potential commercialization.