Biomass in Bristol

Eon have just announced that they intend to build a 150MW power station in bristol - powered by biomass.

The fuel for this station, much like the one proposed for Port Talbot, will probably come from places such as Canada, or perhaps Scandinavia.

The proposed bristol plant is pretty small - using 1.2 million tonnes of fuel year. That's still such a large amount that you wouldn't consider shipping the fuel in by road - so the vast bulk of it is going to have to come in by ship.
This is the problem with such stations - fueling them is very difficult. Coal moves from a point source (mine) to a point source (power station), whilst wood moves from a distributed source (many different forrests, one cannot provide enough fuel) to a point source (power station).
I don't want to argue that coal is more sustainable than biomass, but it does have the advantage that it doesn't tend to move around the country quite as much - creating less noise polution and generally not getting in peoples way as they try to get to work.
That's got to be seen as a benefit.

Interestingly I've also just noticed a protest site for the Port Talbot development. Largely their concerns are baseless - for example they are trying to smear the development by refering to Chenobyl, and complaining about an extra 17 HGV's a day leaving from a large industrial estate and docks complex.
Rather this is a classic case of NIMBY (not in my backyard!), where people with access to the internet, and who don't really understand what they're talking about, can try and sway the general population.

The difference between that and this blog?
I understand what I'm talking about.