Expert blasts council over green fuel

Published 21 Oct 2009 13:54 3 Comments

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AN ENVIRONMENTAL expert has blasted council "incompetence" over Reading Buses' bio-fuel fiasco.

Professor Paul Bardos launched his scathing attack in the wake of the decision to withdraw the flagship bio-ethanol fleet.

The Reading University professor, who has led a number of projects looking at sustainable bio-energy, said: "It's amazing to me that they have only found out about the source of the fuel now.

"Either they are unable to tell the truth or they are incompetent. Somewhere, something's gone wrong. What's evident is the technical knowledge to support these decisions wasn't good enough."

The borough council, which owns Reading Buses, announced last week that bio-ethanol buses on the number 17 route would be withdrawn because they cost twice as much to run as those with bio-diesel systems.

But it also emerged that the fleet of 14 buses had not been running on bio-ethanol derived from sugar waste, which was the green message when the fleet first took the road, but on fuel based on wood pulp imported from Sweden.

Prof Bardos, who has repeatedly clashed with councillors because of his criticism of bio-ethanol buses, said: "There are a lot of sustainability questions about first generation bio-fuels like those which are sugar-based.

"First generation uses a commodity that could also be used as a food stock, whereas second generation uses waste materials. So the supplier has in some ways done them a favour by giving them fuel from a more sustainable source.

"Just last week I saw a passing bus carrying the slogan, 'I'm running on sugar waste' and that's not true. Sugar-based ethanol is made from sugar beet not waste, they should been have known this for two years and yet they continued to push these claims.

"The supplier has just been submitting that because it's a commodity and it's all the same to them, and the council should have been on top of it, why didn't they ask where the bio-ethanol came from?"

The council admits it has been "grossly misled" and borough transport leader Cllr Tony Page said: "I have instigated an investigation as to why and how this has happened, given the assurances that were provided to the council and the Reading Transport board about the source of the fuel."

Stuart Singleton-White, chairman of Reading Transport, added: "It is completely unacceptable that both the board of Reading Buses and the Council have been deceived over the type of bio-ethanol fuel that has been used over the past year.

"We join the borough council in calling for an investigation of how this decision came about and why this information has only just emerged."

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C Preston
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Oct 21, 18:38
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Why is this incompetent council voted in time after time?

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Colin Lee
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Oct 22, 09:46
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Mr Preston, I would suggest that the town is poorly served by our politicians because they work to an agenda which is outside of the interests of the community. They are no doubt going to express righteous indignation at that, but let me list just a few examples of their lack lustre performance - the Heavenly Tinkerbelle festival, the City status bid, the City of Culture bid, Oxford Road lights, the Hills Meadow theatre proposal, the Civic Offices, the One-way IDR, transport planning, AcademySport, and many many more. How many of these were in their election manifestos. They are not elected on policy but on spin and when push comes to crunch they become a law unto themselves; particularly in the absence of scrutiny and opposition which to be frank has until recently been provided by a few members of the public.

The state of the town can be put down to the fact that the ruling party was far too dominant and they simply abused their power on a range of issues. Biofuels is a good example - they wanted to be seen as green as do all parties because there is a real concern for the state of our blue planet among the population. Whether Councillors have the knowledge and experience to do anything about it is another issue.

A central problem is that at local elections the public still vote on party lines. I suggest that every member of the public re-examine the extent that the prospective candidates for their ward at the next Council election have shown any sign of activity to represent the area. If you go to Council meetings you will no doubt observe that a great many of these representatives are just fillers - they just vote as directed and would not say boo to a goose let alone challenge their own executive.

I strongly believe that Reading needs to reject the political parties and to support the independent voice that has been shown to be in the majority of cases right.

Here is a warning. The Government has been devolving power to local authorities without ensuring that the public have the means to challenge any abuse of these powers. It would be good if the public had the right to remove Councillors who have shown poor judgment. It is the biggest cost saving measure I can think of.

Lastly, because I am sure Paul Bardos would want it clarified, he is a visiting Professor at Reading and at Nottingham and not a Reading University Professor.

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Jonathan
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Oct 29, 14:50
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Sorry I'm a bit late to the party, I've been away but I'm totally surprised on returning to read that Reading Buses and Council had "only just" found out that their fuel was not what they thought - because I told them this in June 2008!

After getting no-where asking direct questions to Reading Buses, I spoke to Peter Watson of British Sugar on 24th June 2008, and he followed up with an email clarifying that it was never "sugar waste".

I then forwarded this to Reading Buses and Reading Borough Council - about 3 days later I got a very, let's say "robust", phone call from Sam Simpson from Reading Buses. He proceeded to launch into a hatchet job on Dr Paul Bardos (more on him later) basically saying he was Tory and therefore biased and incorrect and he hated the environment and wanted to kill fluffy bunnies and kittens with hoses run from exhaust pipes into their warrens etc (or something along those lines), and that bioethanol was definitely a waste by-product of growing sugar beet.

I also had the following reply from Reading Buses board member Warren Swaine in reply to "were Reading Buses conning us?":

"As far as RTL is concerned, conned is not the right word. There was a misunderstanding which wasn't cleared up until after the initial publicity had gone out. Reading Buses acted in good faith when putting together the publicity as they were under the impression at the time that it was actually waste product."

Also, in the Reading Forum, on 24th June 2008, he also wrote in reply to further questioning on this:

"I will ask. They cannot lie, spin or whatever you wish to call it to me... I'm a director!"

It appears they were always going to be safe though - when I contacted the Advertising Standards Authority explaining that I felt this "sugar waste" claim to be misleading, I received a reply dated 22nd July 2008 explaining that they do not cover:

"statutory, public, police and other official notices/information, as opposed to marketing communications, produced by public authorities and the like".

I did try and persue this explaining that I felt the sign was a marketing communication, but they we steadfast.

I got a reply from Reading Trading Standards with an almost identical position - as Reading Buses was a council owned company, they could do nothing.

Around this time, I also made contact with this Paul Bardos who Sam Simpson had mentioned. Dr Bardos appeared to have had a similar experience to me - asking lots of questions but getting a lot of brush-offs in the process.

All of this, multiple emails etc, happening across June and July 2008 - unfortunately I moved and changed jobs at around that time, and having tried the best I could, this got pushed to the back of my mind.

But I don't believe for one second that this is a "surprise" to anyone at RTL or RBC - unless they had a two month long "flash forward" style amnesia moment during June and July 2008!

If anyone wants copies of the relevant notes and emails, feel free to ask.

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