Ten reasons to join the protest at Milford Haven LNG

1. The supposed justification for this facility is that we need a secure source of energy when we run out of our own. When is this projected need going to exist? We have just received a pipeline from the huge stocks of Norway. We have so much gas we haven’t got room to store it.

2. If the possibility of having to rely on Russian gas at some hypothetical point in the future represents a strategic threat to our energy supply, how does getting it from the Middle East in vulnerable ships improve our security?

3. The answer is that Qatar, which has the third largest reserves of LNG in the world after Russia and Iran, is the staunchest ally of the USA in the Middle East. Coincidentally the LNG company operating out of Milford is owned by the US giant Carlyle group, whose involvement with the Bush Neo-cons is well documented, and who stand to make enormous profits.  http://english.pravda.ru/comp/2002/06/25/31119.html
 http://www.ameinfo.com/94204.html

4. The planning process has been pushed through, against public protest into safety factors, as a prototype of the Blair governments need to secure energy supplies from private companies. Effectively their power depends on maintaining central control of the legislation related to planning for large energy projects.

5. The Haven is eminently unsuitable for this kind of project; being located in hazardous waters and situated within metres of numerous oil storage tanks. SIGTTO – the industry’s safety consultation network has condemned the siting of the LNG Terminal at Milford.
 http://sigtto.re-invent.net/DNN/

6. The pipeline is ostensibly so large to act as a storage facility as a deterrent to Terrorist attack. Not only is this untenable in view of the vulnerability of the ships, but this kind of pressurised pipe has no precedent in this country and its safety remains a mystery which they have refused to investigate.

7. This whole project is totally unnecessary. As the film Inconvenient Truth points out, we can solve our energy needs and climate change by adopting energy efficiency measures. In this light such massive investment in wasteful technology is absurd and distracts us from the need to create long-term renewable solutions.

8. This whole affair represents the steamrollering of public participation. The first many knew, including those who had signed consents for a “pipeline” of unspecified dimensions to cross their land, of the massive destruction wrought on 200 miles of welsh countryside with motorway size routes cut through priceless landscapes, was when they suddenly found it all happening.

9. In many places the routes have passed perilously close to dwellings, electrical cables and, as in the case of Trebanos, where they have at last prevented them blasting through the mountain, poses a significant risk of landslides. Previous accidents using this technology don’t bear contemplating; the precautionary principle must apply here.

10. Why should this development come through the heartland of rural Wales? Reports suggest the terminal and Re-gassification plant should be sited offshore and brought in somewhere along the Bristol Channel. This shows that corporate interests are at stake and even vie with each other to determine that the route of the pipeline does not go through their land.