Hot air over Poolbeg

AFL-CIO says Covanta “viciously punished these workers”.

So ESRI funded by the Drumcondra Mafia/DCC is now rolling out the jobs Big Lie, an untruth taken directly from DCC/RPS/Covanta PR agencies in Ireland.

And ESRI omits any mention of jobs killed in recycling (Florida). And ESRI omits any mention of Covanta’s record of breaking US laws (dioxins; ammonia/PM2.5s; jobs; etc). And ESRI omits DCC’s massaging of RPS reports and undue influence in a public process (Judge McKechnie) and blackmail threats from a hidden contract. Perhaps someone should forward the dodgy contract to WikiLeaks. ESRI also omits that EPA has still not decided nor specified what pollutants will be measured nor how often nor how.

_____________

Covanta and Jobs.

” … Covanta viciously punished these workers”.

“This ruling lets the rest of the world know that, without question, that Covanta broke the law and will have to put things right.”

Gary P. Sullivan, AFL-CIO. March 2010.

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Judge: Covanta, SEMASS violated workers’ rights

By Staff reports
Herald News Staff
Posted Mar 29, 2010 @ 11:59 AM
BRAINTREE, Mass., USA

A National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge has found that Covanta Energy Corporation/SEMASS is guilty of numerous federal labor law violations, including withholding nearly $1 million in bonuses and wage increases from 140 workers at a plant in Wareham.

@ Richard

Yet again the red herring of landfill targets is being quoted. It is utterley evident with the recent stats appearing in the public environment for landfill figures (-30% nationally and -50% regionally) that we will not fall fowl of these charges, so please stop scaremongering when you are evidently incorrect in this assumption.

As for jobs – 60 with Covanta versus potentailly 600 in recycling – more whittering.

Inward investment – while the figure seems to change by the day – I’ve heard €350m up to €600m – what ever the capital investment will be, at least two thirds of it will be to foreign engineering firms – boiler manufacturers in Germany et al. All that will happen in Ireland is that we will use the last of our good Polish labourers to pore the concrete slabs and then our EU neighbour’s fitters will arrive by plane to bolt the kit to the ground – and promptly then leave again. At least recycling kit can be sourced and supplied by a range of Irish companies. So this is a lame duck item to role out as well.

I agree that the County Manager is in a difficult position – but so is everyone else in this country, just because it took the Corporation 13 years and somewhere between €100m and €200m to get here doesn’t make it correct to proceed at this stage. Policy has changed, the Waste Hierarchy has been put into law – not on the horizon in 1997 – so get on with the changed reality and do not put a millstone around the neck of the country. Build for the changed reality not yesterdays possible reality.

And finally I have checked the ESRI predictions for 2008 waste arisings that were made in 2009 and they seem to be well off the mark i.e. substantially less then predited by the ESRI.

Could I use this post to request that Prof Tol update his posts from January regarding Rajenda Pachauri of the IPCC in light of today’s blog from George Monbiot in the Guardian, which states that:

[QUOTE]…the story was untrue. It’s not just that Pachauri hadn’t been profiting from the help he has given to charities, businesses and institutions, his accounts show that he is scrupulous to the point of self-denial. After the Sunday Telegraph published its story, the organisation for which Pachauri works – a charity called The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) – asked the auditors KPMG to review his financial relationships. KPMG studied all Pachauri’s financial records, accounts and tax returns, as well as TERI’s accounts, for the period 1 April 2008 – 31 December 2009. It found that any money paid as a result of the work that Pachauri had done for other organisations went not to him but to TERI. None of the money was paid back to him by TERI: he received only his annual salary, which is £45,000.[/QUOTE]

I ask, given Prof Tol’s statement at the time that:

[QUOTE]Under normal conflict of interest rules as followed by other leading scientific advisory institutions, Mr. Pachauri would no longer be tolerable as the IPCC’s chairperson.[/QUOTE]

The Sunday Telegraph has now pulled the original story of North’s, whose blog Prof Tol linked to on this site, and apologised. Furthermore Mr Monbiot reproduces a quote from North’s blog from February: “Pachauri is on the ropes but he ain’t down yet. The view is it will take one more ‘killer blow’ to fell him .. and it looks as if its been found! … R K Pachauri needs to be acquainted with the first rule of politics – DFWN … since it is a family blog, you’ll have to work it out for yourselves.” DFWN standing for ‘Don’t Fuck With North.

The article is just another in the long list of subsequent exposes of the smear tactics of right wing Climate Change denialists. But who cares when the truth comes out months after the damage is done?…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/aug/26/rajendra-pachauri-financial-relationships

The current Dublin City Council Manager, John Tierney stated that uncertainty had arrived at the 11th hour – does that mean there was/is still time to do something, to take some stock, was there time to postpone signing the contract until there was more certainty? At the 11th hour generally means: almost – but not late or the latest possible time. I know we are where we are, but I would like to know more about how we got here. What role did previous Ministers for the Environment have in the situation we now find ourselves in? Could Mr Tierney have held off on signing the contract with Covanta? Many will say this will not help us deal with the current situation, but I think it may be important to review the mind set that led to us to where we are now.

@TRP

My understanding is that the objection isn’t to incineration per say – it’s more to do with the fact that it is such a large incinerator that it will crowd out opportunities for domestic waste companies that may provide better treatment options. It also is so big that it will dominate Irish waste policy for up to 25 years. By guaranteeing waste amounts at what some might say is a high level it doesn’t help to promote recycling and reducing waste. As for NIMBYism – I think John Gormley and the Green Party would oppose this plant in any constituency it just so happens it is in his constituency and therefore he is even more adamant to oppose it, as he has done for years. And it annoys me that an unelected official, the Dublin City Council manager entered into this contract with Covanta even though the new Minister for the Environment had let Dublin City Council know that waste policy was going to be reviewed and a cap placed on incineration. Would it not have been prudent to hold off on signing the contract given that there was such a change in the Ministerial position on environmental matters? Or did the unelected County Manager think he knew best? Anyway, there just a few of my tuppence ha’pennies on the matter, I am happy to be corrected or convinced otherwise on any points.

@Holbrook Fields – surely the key question is the relative cost of different approaches – I have no idea which one is cheaper, but no doubt there are returns to scale in incineration, which would explain the size of the proposed plant. Whenver decisions are taken on ideological grounds (or purely local electoral grounds), as I suspect they have been by John Gormley, the costs to Joe and Josephine Soap are not a consideration.

[split post, to include second link]

I only wish to highlight the fact, that with capital spending programs, which Ireland will have to borrow the finance in the coming years, there are also questions about governance. Conor Skehan would argue for a more regional top down approach, instead of the current one, which works from the bottom with local councils. I tried to make some points recently on Michael Moore’s thread on Ricardian Equivalency, about local versus centralised governments and taxation. BOH.

http://www.irisheconomy.ie/index.php/2010/08/31/whelan-on-ricardian-equivalence/#comment-68861

@richard

thanks for taking the time to converse on the topic. Some might argue that John Gormley is fighting for the long term interest of the country and that Mr Tierney is acting for short term political considerations. And is it really the case that the Dublin City Council Manager, John Tierney, a man who I know very little about, but who holds an enormous amount of power in the city that I live, has control over waste policy? Is it true to say that? Does the sitting Minister of the Environment of the day, one of the first Green Party ministers in Ireland not have any say over waste policy? is that not what he was elected for?

Richard, I think you have misundersood the problem of regulatory uncertainty in relation to infrastructure investment and in particular this infrastructure investment.

Usually this problem happens when for example, a nuclear power company considers building a plant in a country, and there is a fear that the country will then change the tax and other treatment of the plant, or where a bus operator considers developing a route, but fears that once the route is established, that the government which granted it a licence, will subsidise another company to run services in the same area at a cheaper price, thereby undermining the operator. As a result there is a fear that the original investment will not result in a fair return, and so the business case is undermined.

In the current case, the question of uncertainty does not arise for the obvious reason that the infrastructure has not been built yet and no service is being provided. Additionally, the issue is not one of trying to gouge the provider, but the government determining the best financial way forward for itself. There is no question but that Covanta will be compensated for any loss.

This is commercial uncertainty not regulatory uncertainty. Commercial uncertainty, i.e., customers’ proclivity to decide not to buy stuff or to legitimately invoke cancellation clauses, is unfortunately a fact of life in all business.

Just as Dublin City Council has to accept that my (treacherous) neighbour switched rubbish collections to Key Waste, Covanta would have to accept the fact that DCC lawfully decided not to go ahead. It has no reason for complaint, and no moral position to get high and mighty about it.

Does anyone know where/if we can find out how loss making the current waste managment operations carried out by Dublin and Fingal county council?

In Dunlaoighaire Rathdown the council has withdrawn from waste managment becuase it was loss making.
” In a statement, the Council said it currently has about 18,500 customers, down from 64,000 in 2006, and the net cost of maintaining the service was estimated at €3.5m in 2010.”

Below is the quantity of waste sent to landfill from the 4 Dublin local authorities since 2006 and my estimate for 2010. The trend is clear.
(Figures from annual reports)

DCC FCC SDCC DLRCC
2006 148,317 64,252 59,438 Couldn’t find
2007 138,861 61,216 63,133 Couldn’t find
2008 121,017 54,458 59,452 29,490
2009 104,694 37,789 43,471* Couldn’t find
2010 85,000** 25,000** 30,000** Don’t know Total 2010: 140,000**
2011 70,000 20,000 22,000 0*** Total 2011: 112,000**

* up to end of october 2009
**my best estimate
*** DLRCC have pulled out of waste business because of losses and competition.

If anyone thinks my estimates are unrealistic then please post your own and we can compare as it unfolds.

The trend is clear and started before the economic crash. Panda, Greenstar, and others are out competeing the local authorities all over the country and will get stuck into DCC in the next few years. DCC is committing to being the last real bastion of local authority waste collectors for the next 25 years whether it has to carry massive losses or not.

These are the real numbers that will be on the minds of DCC managers until next spring.

Oxygen, Thorntons, Greenstar, and Panda are all investing heavily in their own waste disposal infrastructure, so will not send their waste to the incinerator.

DCC is certainly doing its bit for the landfill targets!!

No, nothing on actual fines. As I understand it the date for compliance is 2010, after which fines will start to accumulate. They might not be paid for years. However, if there is insufficient capacity to reduce waste to landfill now, it seems unlikely that it will appear by the end of the year. Thus it is reasonable to discuss with relative certainty the potential fines Ireland might face over the short to medium term. I think.

“By the way, the official waste numbers do not come from a blogger called Sam or Conor; nor from the IWMA; nor from the Green Party. The numbers come from the EPA.”

One might add that they don’t come from the ESRI.

By the way, any discussion about whether or not we’re going to meet our 2010 target is irrelevant to Poolbeg, as it was never going to contribute to meeting that target in any case. 2013 and 2016 are the relevant dates.

@Richard,
Can I retract and appologise for that ‘pen pusher’ slur above. Stupid expression anyway, and I have respect for you on Climate and Energy policy and the fact that you engage.

I do have a tendency to rant and not review.

@ Richard,
Very good, much better than the on that score than the EPA who still require 1 original paper copy and 2 paper copies of everything.
Not very environmentally aware!