Brewery warns on EPA limits

The Guinness brewery at St James's Gate in Dublin will be severely handicapped by the carbon dioxide limits, its owners, Diageo, has warned.

Diageo decided early this year to close its Park Royal brewery in London in mid-2005, with the loss of 90 jobs, and to transfer the operation to Dublin.

The change would secure the long-term future of the Dublin brewery and increase production there of the company's most famous brand by 50 per cent next year.

The company built a fuel-efficient combined heat and power (CHP) plant at St James's Gate in 1998, which now sells electricity to the national grid.

The existence of the power plant was "a key factor" in the decision to close London, Diageo Ireland's risk manager, Mr Fergal Murray, told the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

St James's Gate, he said, would produce 20,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year more than it is allowed under its EPA licence, unless licence changes are made.

The EPA's allocation also militates against using the energy-efficient CHP plant to its optimum level.

It can re-use 83 per cent of "waste" heat when operating at full capacity.

Extra brewing at St James's Gate would increase emissions, but the excess electricity sold to the national grid by the CHP would cut national figures, Mr Murray explained.

However, he said, Diageo now faces complying with an EPA licence based on 2002/2003 production and "partial use" of the CHP plant.

"We regard this as being highly inequitable, especially when account is taken of other European national allocation plans (NAP) where this type of growth is being recognised, e.g. Germany.

"We should stress that Diageo Ireland competes globally for business and an increasing proportion of production is exported from the Republic and European Union.

"Under the current national allocation plan rules it would appear that [ Diageo] will be severely penalised for investment in growth," he declared.

"In view of the significant decision taken by Diageo earlier this year to relocate its British-based brewing operation to Ireland we are requesting that the EPA would take into account its changed requirements when finalising the NAP allocations."

Meanwhile, Irish Distillers complained strongly that the EPA had given it a licence that covered only 73 per cent of its expected carbon dioxide emissions between 2004 and 2008.

Other companies will receive licences covering 97 per cent of their expected emissions, said the company's general manger Mr Peter Morehead.