H) Dorset Council Climate Emergency issues – IMPORTANT planning ground

***Use your OWN words – do not copy ours – or your planning objection may not count***

1. Contrary to Dorset Council’s Declaration of a Climate and Ecological Emergency (see B1 and G1) as it would increase air pollution in local air and add to greenhouse gases: approx. 577 tonnes of CO2 every day (assuming 350 days of operation a year), high levels of nitrogen oxides, ammonia, hydrogen chloride, hydrogen fluoride; ultra-fine particulate matter (UFP) and PM 2.5 which government is aiming to reduce: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-53835111?fbclid=IwAR1msriwsWdlOT9k3ur-_NzQ4znRnaevH3pGtuk-x_5B1jWvcEYdcyRgW18 .
2. Negative climate impact of pollution to atmosphere from waste incineration will increase in significance as decreases are achieved in other sectors (e.g. in move to electric vehicles and homeworking).
3. To be economically viable, there would be a need to import waste from outside Dorset and probably outside UK to meet demand of its furnace. This would be damaging Dorset’s air quality and visitor economy in order to burn foreign waste: see F2 and G3
4. The argument that emissions of approximately 577 tonnes of CO2 a day could be offset by purchasing of carbon credits does not hold. This is just a desk exercise.  The idea that the further carbon emissions into the atmosphere could be mitigated with some tree planting does not hold.  A typical mature tree sequesters one tonne of CO2 over a lifetime of 100 years.  This means that, apart from considerations of immediate harm to local air quality, even if 577 trees were planted by Powerfuel every day (210,028 a year) for the lifetime of the plant and NO OTHER TREES WERE CUT DOWN ANYWHERE, it would take 100 years for the CO2 emitted by their incinerator to be sequestered. This level of tree planting would dwarf any such project seen to date in the UK.
5. The proposal is also now in direct conflict with the latest government pledges on climate change and power generation. On 6 October 2020, the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, pledged that “offshore wind farms will generate enough electricity to power every home in the UK within a decade”. He declared: “As Saudi Arabia is to oil, the UK is to wind – a place of almost limitless resource, but in the case of wind without the carbon emissions and without the damage to the environment.”