Anaerobic Digester / Methane Power Plant

By Tony Golding

Well Myles, if you think the view from Atherstone Hill is one of the finest, take a look at the one from Edgehill and Sun Rising Hill. It is here that Acorn Energy are planning to build an anaerobic digester, which is a methane power plant.

The site will be the size of 10 football pitches, located at the junction between Tysoe and Kineton on the A429 right in the middle of the beautiful Red Horse Vale.

First of all ‘What Is an Anaerobic Digester’? in theory it makes so called ‘green’ energy from animal waste (so your power potentially, will no longer be vegan) and bio crops, such as maize. Bacteria breaks down the waste in sealed oxygen free tanks creating a biogas, which is mostly methane.

But ‘green energy’ Is a good thing I hear you say. Yes, we do need to move away from old fossil fuelled power stations as the government has set a challenging ‘net zero’ carbon economy by the year 2050. Maybe there is an environmental case for these power stations in the future. But surely not here!

Our concerns are as follows:

Firstly maize doesn’t grow very well in the soil here in Warwickshire, Using prime agricultural land for growing ‘power crops’ is also very controversial.

The use of animal waste, is a grave concern, for me personally, anyone who knows of the horrors at Hogshill pig farm near Tysoe will be deeply concerned by this!

The location is slap bang in the middle of the view from an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty at Edgehill. The increase traffic will be awful, estimated to be 40 jugonauts per day.

Industrial plants, which this is, should be located on Brownfield sites.

Surely this proposal is proposterous, the plans have by now been submitted to Stratford District Council. A village meeting in Tysoe was packed to the rafters with locals with huge concerns. Acorn Energy or Hardwick Energy had very few answers to their concerns.

Surely we cannot let the government steamroller across our sacred countryside for the sake of a few token green gestures to combat climate change. Much more thought and better policies need to be urgently adopted.

Plan of the power plant, more information is available at https://stophardwickenergy.org