Floating oil-fired plant for Turkish tourist region

On 27 March, the environmental NGO criticised the Turkish Energy Ministry and the utility, TEAS, for using a national “energy emergency” situation as an excuse to exempt such plants from environmental and public review. It says that the plan to install a 130-Megawatt mobile oil -fired plant to be operated by Turkish company, AKSA Energy, in Antalya was recently rejected by the local people, so now the plant is to be sited in Gocek Bay on the Dalaman coast, which attracts four to five million tourists a year.

Greenpeace says the Mayor of Dalaman, Mr Sevket Durmus, expressed shock when informed of the problems related with this project and requested more information on clean alternatives. It calls the plants “environmental hazards”, causing smog and respiratory problems and

posing “significant risks of spills into the sea with particular potential harmful impacts on fisheries and spawning areas”. Greenpeace says a similar 95-Megawatt project was dropped last summer in San Francisco Bay in the face of strong opposition from the community and environmental justice groups, in spite of the ongoing electricity crisis in California, with the utility, PG&E, being forced to withdraw the proposal.

“Greenpeace is strongly opposing the proliferation of highly polluting and expensive mobile and floating oil-fired plants being promoted by Energy Minister Ersumer, who is deliberately taking advantage of the the chaos and corruption in the electricity sector,” said Melda Keskin, Energy

Campaigner for Greenpeace Mediterranean, referring to a scandal last year. During the White Energy Operation investigating the billion-

dollar corruption in the Turkish electricity sector, businessmen

trying to build mobile plants were charged with bribing high level

energy officials, and imprisoned.

The organisation also alleges that the Turkish Ministry of Energy is now giving way to companies to operate mobile-floating plants with no emission controls or any Environmental Impact Assessment. “As the number of these mobile-floating power plants increases, having electricity costs at least double the average electricity costs of the system, the concept of planning will be dropped further and the stability of the electricity system will be destroyed,”former head of the state Utility TEK, F. Behcet Yucel, reportedly told the newspaper Dunya.

“Minister Ersumer has no acceptable defence for insisting on

these polluting oil plants, profiting only companies such as

AKSA Energy,” said Keskin. “Turkish energy officials continue to dig their head in the sand and refuse to exploit the country’s huge

potential for producing energy from available renewable

resources.”

A week earlier, edie reported that Russia is planning to construct floating nuclear power plants (see related story).