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Some of Ireland’s brightest scientific and economic minds
have become embroiled in a public slanging match, amid claims
that each other’s reports into the national waste market are
erroneous.
Economic consultants DKM
joined the fray last weekend, claiming that a controversial
report
published by the ESRI last week on the matter ‘‘contains a
number of serious flaws’’.
DKM said that the ESRI report, commissioned by Dublin City
Council - which is locked into a contract with US energy giant
Covanta to build and supply waste to the 600,000 tonne Poolbeg
incinerator - was ‘‘seriously biased in favour of incineration’’.
DKM’s analysis of the ESRI report was commissioned by the
Irish Waste Management Association (IWMA) - which includes
some big-hitting incinerator companies as members, including
Indaver
Ireland.
The ESRI report set out three primary recommendations to
reform the state’s waste structure. Among these is the imposition
of higher levies on landfill compared to incineration or mechanical
biological treatment (MBT) - a mixed sorting and composting
or similar facility.
One of DKM’s biggest criticisms is that the ESRI made a major
error in claiming that the levy on incineration did not need
to account for the cost of paying for related CO2
emissions, as these would already be covered under the ETS
(emissions trading scheme) - where emissions are traded within
the EU’s carbon trading market.
‘‘This is clearly not the case," DKM director and environmental
economics analyst John Lawlor said.
In fact, the ESRI’s Richard Tol debated this point on the
Irish Economy blog
within hours of the ESRI report’s publication. Critics and
supporters of the institute’s thesis joined in. Tol is not
the report’s author, but said he had sat in on meetings at
the institute which considered the pre-publication aspects
of the report.
One of the report’s online critics put it to Tol that, on
page 66 of the ESRI report, the institute had claimed that
‘‘incinerators are subject to the ETS’’. Tol defended the
claim steadfastly, but later admitted that the report was
wrong on that point.
The ESRI has flatly rejected Gormley’s criticism, as well
as the inference that it was influenced by the fact that its
client was linked to a major incinerator project.
The ESRI report itself was heavily critical of an earlier
report by Eunomia consultants for the Department of Environment.
Eunomia’s Dr Dominic Hogg rebuked the ESRI over its claim
that his report was flawed and counterattacked by saying that
the ESRI’s report contained ‘‘major errors’’.
Critics of the ESRI report say that it encourages the government
to place less emphasis on reaching EU waste-reduction targets.
They also claim that MBT is preferred over incineration in
the Programme for Government and in a recent Section 60 policy
direction issued by Gormley. A reading of both the Programme
for Government and Section 60 suggests that there is no such
preference.
The reality is that few journalists or public commentators
are equipped with the scientific knowledge to analyse the
conflicting elements in the scientific reports.
Up to this, the debate about the Poolbeg incinerator has
centred on opposition to the waste-to-energy facility by private
waste collectors, the IWMA and Gormley.
Gormley has insisted that he is not motivated by the presence
of an incinerator in the backyard of his constituency. Instead,
his stated rationale is that a 600,000-tonne ‘'super incinerator'’
would potentially dominate the Dublin region’s future waste
policy for decades to come.
Dublin City Council fought a battle with private waste companies
and the IWMA when it attempted to amend the capital’s regional
waste policy in 2008. The result was a High Court action taken
by Greenstar and Panda.
The private waste collectors claimed that the local authority
- acting as coordinator of waste policy for the capital’s
four councils - had signed up to an expensive waste incinerator
that was too large to begin with.
They also claimed that the council erroneously presumed that
it could force all of the capital’s private waste companies
to bring the waste they collected to the Poolbeg burner, to
satisfy Dublin City Council’s contractual agreement with Covanta
to supply 320,000 tonnes of municipal waste to the facility.
Mr Justice William McKechnie found
in favour of Panda and Greenstar and rebuked the council in
last month’s judgment.
Gormley has said that he will appoint a high-level expert
to review the contract between Covanta and Dublin’s councils
- to take a close look at the contingent liabilities.
Effectively, he wants to make sure that, if Dublin’s councils
cannot fulfil their side of the agreement to supply 320,000
tonnes of waste, he will be able to ascertain what the cost
to the taxpayer will be.
Source - The Sunday Business Post
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