Hungarian town votes against "green" power plant

A referendum held Sunday in the southeast Hungarian town of Medgyesegyháza resulted in construction of a "green" straw-fueled power plant being blocked, writes Népszabadság.

Of the 3,261 residents entitled to vote, 2,202 people cast ballots, and 1,570 - or just over 70% - voted against the development, against 632 or 28.7% who approved, after a local group opposed to the project collected enough signatures to hold the referendum. Based on the results of the referendum, the power station will not be built, town registrar Béla Gácsér said.

Enterpreneur Ottó Hujber, former chairman of the Socialist Party's Entrepreneur Branch (Vállalkozói Tagozat) and president of Intertraverz Zrt, first talked to the local government in 2006 about his idea for the power plant. In August 2007, the government signed a contract with Hujber about selling him a six-hectare lot of land for Ft 32 million, close to ten times the local land price. The transaction would have gone through if Hujber had completed plans and acquired permits for construction within two years. However, locals started protesting against the idea the minute it was announced.

Hujber and his company earlier attempted to build similar straw-burning power plants in small towns around the country, including Szerencs, Baja, Kalocsa, Zsana, Bonyhád, Vép and Söjtör. Construction has not begun anywhere, and in most settlements, the plans received fierce criticism from locals. The Szerencs plant, for example, is very close to the Tokaj wine region, resulting in fears that the special micro-climate necessary for growing the aszú grape would be damaged. Other towns complained that the power plants would not be so "green," as the trucks transporting the straw to them would increase traffic and pollution considerably.

The proposed plant would have had a capacity of 50 megawatts and cost approximately Ft 40 billion (€15 million).

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