Green or not? Former Uskmouth power station to generate electricity from household waste!

Coastalwatch

Atlantic Future Energy are seeking investment capital to assist with conversion of the decommissioned coal fired Uskmouth power station to generate electricity from household waste in the form of processed dried pellets.
Upon reading I first thought what a great project. On the one hand helping to solve the ever growing problem of our landfill requirement while also generating valuable energy in the process.
Additionally the plant would be kept alive for another twenty years or so while maintaining employment for the area too, as opposed to being left to slowly decay.
The predicted twenty year lifespan would assist during the transition period before other renewable forms of energy and storage can provide fully for the countries needs.
Because waste going to landfill has a cost attached to it and once all value has been removed then the pellets can be produced at a much lower cost than other fuels and a fraction of that compared to traditional pure biomass.
So it all seems very positive in being a winning combination.
However, there is a downside which I’m struggling to reconcile, that being the resulting emissions!
CO2 wise, it's about 40% of that produced when generating from coal, so an undoubted improvement, but transversely still greater than that for gas!
At a time when the enlightened world is being directed to reduce CO2 emissions I’m struggling to work out whether the whole project is to be applauded or not.
I wonder what others thoughts on the matter might be while my limited mental capacity wrestles with the pros and cons in an attempt to determine if it is actually Green and Ethical!
For those of a more inquisitive nature, further detail can be found at the link below:

https://www.abundanceinvestment.com/investments

Hexane

A significant proportion of my non-recyclable waste appears to be non-recyclable and non-reusable plastics (I try to avoid buying them but you can only do so much) or plastics that are so contaminated with food waste or whatever that recycling them becomes impossible. If most other people's landfill-destined waste is similar, surely turning it into pellets and then burning it, is going to cause a toxic chemical mess of emissions? I don't mean CO2, but I mean all manner of other things. Burning plastics generates cyanide-related gases and god knows what else. Does this all get removed at the flue of the power station?

Coastalwatch

Thanks Hexane, it's something that concerns us as well.(and for me to wrestle further with)

Used containers get washed here in the remains of the washing up water before being deposited in the recycling bin in the fervant hope they are recycled. Aluminium foil even gets washed and reused when possible.
With regard to toxic fumes I read through the further details and picked out the quote below:-

Following conversion, the power station will operate according to
more stringent emissions limits than it has in the past, and will need
to adhere to the best available techniques for controlling emissions
under the Industrial Emissions Directive. The combustion testing that
we are doing as part of the next phase of design and testing work
will be carried out to prove that the specially designed burners can
combust the fuel pellets in a way which will allow us to meet these
latest emissions limits. We will also be carrying out refurbishment
and upgrade works to the equipment which cleans the power
station’s exhaust before release to the atmosphere.

While it gives some comfort that the necessary steps are being taken, quite what level of emissions are permitted I've no idea so perhaps something to follow up on. Thank you.:)

Martyn1981

Hexane wrote: »

If most other people's landfill-destined waste is similar, surely turning it into pellets and then burning it, is going to cause a toxic chemical mess of emissions? I don't mean CO2, but I mean all manner of other things. Burning plastics generates cyanide-related gases and god knows what else. Does this all get removed at the flue of the power station?

That would be my main concern. And whilst I don't want to appear naive (OK too naive) I'm going to assume that high temperature combustion and suitable emission controls will be used to manage this. If not, then it would be a non-starter for me, and I'd suggest (again naively) for central and local government approval.

Just rambling off topic, but what will happen to plastics long term. they are a form of FF oil, so is long term storage/burial a 'good' way to put it back in the ground, or will they breakdown anyway, releasing all their juicy goodness to the ground/air?

Perhaps a system to heat then pump liquid plastic down into old oil/gas cavities, as a form of carbon capture, but again would that be eternal storage, or just long term storage. Just wondering if 'safe' burning is an acceptable solution.

joefizz

I'm away from home again and on phone for the next day or two so will save a long reply but later.
For fairness I've an ifisa with abundance and have lots of different investments with them.
I pulled out of the p2p market a while ago as I saw the migration to property and it's inevitable decline in advance. I've stayed with abundance until now as they have some interesting stuff and I hope they do well going forward.
I didn't invest in this and won't be for a number of reasons but don't take that as a plus or minus or indeed investment advice.
The project looks similar to one originally planned here in NI and has been a long drawn out political affair which is well documented online.
I spent some time with the folk involved here in NI both on the development side and the protest side and both had valid arguments and I got the science part of it ( if everything worked as it should)
I was however convinced that a lot on both sides was purely political here and indeed the installation itself imho was contrived rather than looking for a solution from eco, power or waste solutions.


I haven't looked into this one in depth but looked the same. One of the conversations I remember having with one of the chief designers was about the safety systems. He mentioned all the gas checks and redundancy and emergency shutdown measures etc. All very impressive.

I was familiar with the site and location as is looked at buying land nearby and just mentioned to him that they had better be good as they would be the first to die.
He looked confused and I explained it was a natural hollow and the locals knew it was a microclimate so any toxic gas release would for a large portion of the year just settle on the site and not blow away.
He did go quite white at that one and excused himself.
I think the locals told me that, still does no harm for him to go back and check and triple check the systems and maybe review all the possible inputs....

Coastalwatch

Thanks joefizz, great to hear from someone with experience on a similar project. Looking forward to further input as and when, pro or con.
I've been trawling through the IED hoping to come up with actual emission limits for a range of toxic substances for Large Combustion Processes but with no success. So far.
Something I did glean was:-
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]

4.52. For a new installation (or a substantial change to an existing installation, where the effect of the change bears significantly on a Community EQS), if environmental quality before the installation begins to operate meets the requirements of a Community EQS, then this must remain so after the installation comes into operation. If the necessary ELVs cannot be met then the permit must be refused....

[/FONT]
Where EQS is the Environment Quality Standard and ELV is the Emission Limit Value. These terms are mentioned frequently elsewhere but with no figures suggesting what they might be. Presumably listed in another document referenced in the text somewhere!
As the plant is on an existing industrial site the above may apply. Unfortunately, as this was a coal fired power station originally built in the 1960's then little if any pollution levels would have been applied or complied with. I'm happy to be advised otherwise if not the case. So little there to gain comfort from there.
Searching further I came across the AirClim website, Air Pollution & Climate Secretariat with a section on Large Combustion Plants(>50MW) stating:-

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]BREF for large combustion plants:[/FONT][FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The decision-making process under the EU’s Industrial Emissions Directive defines best available techniques (BAT) in BREF documents which are to be used by member states to set binding emission limit values for toxic emissions, such as sulphur dioxide (SO[/FONT][FONT=Arial, sans-serif]2[/FONT][FONT=Arial, sans-serif]), nitrogen oxides (NOx), mercury and particulate matter (PM[/FONT][FONT=Arial, sans-serif]2.5[/FONT][FONT=Arial, sans-serif]). New, updated BREF documents should be adopted and published no later than eight years after the previous version, and the first LCP BREF document was published in 2006. In April 2017 - three years behind schedule - member states finally agreed on a new LCP BREF document that will require EU countries to apply new tighter emission limits for sulphur dioxide (SO[/FONT][FONT=Arial, sans-serif]2[/FONT][FONT=Arial, sans-serif]), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) to all existing large combustion plants (LCP) in the EU, including all large coal-fired power plants. Emission limits for mercury have also been introduced for the first time. The new standards will have to be complied with by 2021.[/FONT]

Where BAT = Best Available Technique and BREF = BAT Reference document.
It would appear then that the pollutents concerning Hexane and Mart are covered, but to what level I've not been able to determine. At least they've been identified and presumably ELV's set for them somewhere!
I'll search further over the coming days but in the meantime if one of our more learned contributors could enlighten us I'd be pleasantly relieved.:)

Reed_Richards

Hexane wrote: »

Burning plastics generates cyanide-related gases and god knows what else.

Hydrogen cyanide gas, chemical formula HCN. Burn (i.e. oxidise) it and you get water, carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. So if burning plastics gives you cyanides you're not doing the job properly and not achieving complete combustion. That might happen if you chuck plastics on your bonfire but it shouldn't happen in a purpose-built facility.

Martyn1981

Reed_Richards wrote: »

Hydrogen cyanide gas, chemical formula HCN. Burn (i.e. oxidise) it and you get water, carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. So if burning plastics gives you cyanides you're not doing the job properly and not achieving complete combustion. That might happen if you chuck plastics on your bonfire but it shouldn't happen in a purpose-built facility.

Apologies if you don't know the answer, but that ties in with me naive assumption that the burning has to be clean(!) to be allowed, so do you have any knowledge/ideas as to whether UK licencing and monitoring is stout enough for this?

Not a trick question, it just seems to me that a thermal plant backing up intermittent RE is a great idea, but all hinges on the 'dirty' factor.

Coastalwatch

Having searched further I've found the Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD) covering thermal capacities of >50MW.
In Appendix 1, table 1 Emission Limit Values for existing plants are set, and in table 2 for new plants.
I don't pretend to understand the figures or units quoted in relation to "safe" levels but it would appear in general that new plants are to have their emissions cut to around half of those for existing.
For instance in mg/Nm3, existing limitations for So2, No2 and Dust were 2000, 600 & 100 whereas for new plants the limitations appear to be 850, 400 & 50.
I thought its by no means conclusive but a step in the right direction and at least figures/units quoted that can eventually be put into context by means of comparison with known safe levels.
It would be dangerous for me to interpret figures further , so I'll leave well alone in the hope that someone else may be able to shed more light to assist my continuing wrestling match.:o
https://ec.europa.eu/environment/air/pdf/final_report_05app.pdf

Martyn1981

Great_Ache wrote: »

We could set up a chain of Nuclear powered plastic waste disposal reactors where all household waste was burned inside a fusion reactor. This would solve the waste crisis and the spare heat could be piped through people's houses.

And the great news is that fusion is probably only about 20yrs away, down from 30yrs away about 30yrs ago.

Ectophile

Great_Ache wrote: »

We already have enough nuclear, gas, links to france and norway and renewables in the mix or in the pipeline so we don't need anymore fusion reactors. What we need is more AI.

We don't have any fusion reactors (except experimental ones that use more energy than they consume).


What we have is loads of fission reactors.


And if you have a fission reactor, the last thing you want is something burning inside it. That's generally a sign that you need to do an emergency shutdown, and evacuate the area.