Alternative energy or hot air?

JIMENA/GIBRALTAR The following is a translation of an article that appeared in Europa Sur yesterday and posted on TioJimenoDigital. After you have read it, see Prospero's comments at the foot of the article. “The first Alternative Energies Workshop in Jimena takes place on Monday, April 30^th at the Hotel Monasterio in Montenegral. It is organized by Aardvark Investments S.A., owners of Parque Vega Barría, where the Town Hall wants to develop a Centre for Alternative Energies and Materials.
Some prestigious researchers in the fields of renewable energies, especially as applied to bio-diesel, an energy generating system in which the Town Hall has placed a lot of interest with a view to local development of the Parque Vega Barría. The Mayor, Ildefonso Gómez,>has explained that this matter is of great interest not only to the municipality as everyone knows the environmental problems the planet is suffering, especially regarding global warming. At the same time, adds Gómez, the Parque Vega Barría is of prime importance since the project for an airport there was discarded after a negative environmental impact report. The idea is to make good use of the area without causing incompatibility with the local environment while contributing to an improvement of the environment that benefits everyone.
The workshops begin at 10 a.m. and close at 5 p.m. Participating will be Professor Jack Brown of the University of Idaho and Michael Becker, of Eco-Energy Investments.”

PROSPERO'S COMMENTS: All three highlighted names (Hotel Monasterio, Parque Vega Barría and Aardvark Investments S.A.) are linked to one person: Robert Noonan.
Noonan, whose hospitality Prospero has enjoyed in Dublin and Jimena when both were linked to the second International Music Festival (theme: Ireland), is an investor, mainly through Irish Trusts, whose companies bought the land on which an airport was planned and rejected. That is the so-called Parque Vega Barría. Noonan is also involved in the development of at least one golf course in San Pablo, plus at least one luxury hotel and, apparently, thousands of homes.

It is worth following this up, if nothing else to keep an eye on what the 'alternative energies' actually mean: windmills? A bio-diesel plant?

There is an interesting series of comments on TioJimeno, and I know one of this blog's followers has made a comment there (in Spanish - perhaps, you'd like to do the same here, amigo).
Below is an extract from a Gibraltar website, which was fighting against the destruction of the Naval Dockyards at Rosia Bay for development.

OEM International is led by chairman Robert Noonan. He has been involved with Gibraltar for over 12 years via his Irish Trusts.
When the affordable housing project was announced it was revealed that he made a donation of £1m  to fund the new swimming pool currently under construction at Europort Avenue for the elderly and disabled.
He was also leading the now abandoned project to build an airport in the Jimena area.

'Nuff said (so far).