However, industry experts have defended the waste treatment technology as a “bankable and proven” method of waste management that is currently being hampered by the planning system and not lack of market confidence.
Waste management giant Veolia Environmental Services has already moved to quash concerns about the future of its Newhaven energy-from-waste incineration project – which is having its technology provided by AE&E Inova AG (see letsrecycle.com story).
Despite this, campaign group Friends of the Earth claimed the AE&E announcement was indicative of a “contracting market” for energy-from-waste (EfW) incinerators and suggested that confidence in projects based on the technology could be undermined.
Julian Kirby, resource campaigner at Friends of the Earth, told letsrecycle.com: “There has been a feeling that there has been a contracting market for energy-from-waste and I assuming there is going to be hard futures for council contracts [based around energy-from-waste incineration].”
The campaign group also claimed that the withdrawal of PFI funding from seven projects under October's Comprehensive Spending Review, many of which were based on reference technologies of energy-from-waste incineration, indicated a government-level awareness of potential over-capacity for the technology.
Mr Kirby said: “Obviously, with the recession, waste arisings are not going up as projected and not going up as a number of these energy-from-waste companies projected and also in line with how tried to convince councils that they would be.”
Autoclave specialist Sterecycle suggested earlier this month that the withdrawal of PFI funding could potentially open the door to councils using alternative treatment technologies to EfW incineration (see letsrecycle.com story).
Response
In response to Friends of the Earth's comments, industry experts and trade association the Environmental Services Association rebuked the notion that AE&E's situation indicated wider problems in the energy-from-waste market. And, they claimed that the technology would continue to play an integral part in the UK's waste treatment infrastructure.
Robert Wheatley, industry expert and director of environmental consultancy RWPM Ltd, said that the evolving designs and technologies within energy-from-waste incineration would continue to make the treatment type relevant to councils' needs.
He said: “Councils are currently looking at alternatives but our view is they are going to turn back to energy-from-waste when, in my view, they come back to reality. Conventional moving grate technology is moving on fast, it is evolving, it is rocket science and everyone with common sense is aware of the role for energy-from-waste.”
“Proven”
In addition, the Environmental Services Association (ESA) said that EfW incineration would continue to be used by councils due to its long-standing presence in the waste and recycling sector, with it being viewed as a reliable technology when it came to accessing funding for projects.
A spokesman for the ESA said: “Conventional energy from waste is a proven, bankable technology, which can help meet the EU and UK 2020 commitments for heat and transport sector energy requirements, while at the same time also providing significant quantities of electric power.
“ESA expects energy solutions to provide a significant proportion of the residual waste treatment capacity which the UK still needs to develop to meet the Landfill Directive requirements.”
The ESA's comments were echoed by Adam Read, knowledge leader at environmental consultancy specialists AEA Technology, who claimed that, while councils assess alternative technology types, EfW incineration is still seen as a robust and tested technology type.
“I don't think [AE&E's difficulties] will affect industry confidence in EfW technology per se, it is not as if it is one of the newer technology types, such as pyrolysis with gasification, if had been one of those types of technology I think it would have been very different.”
Planning
And, while Friends of the Earth claimed that market confidence could be affected, the issue of planning hold-ups was touted as a consistent issue for firms looking to develop plants. An issue which SITA UK claimed earlier this year could create a potential ‘time bomb' for the waste sector (see letsrecycle.com story).
Echoing this idea, the ESA spokesman said that planning was in fact the “largest obstacle” facing EfW incineration and not market uncertainty. According to the spokesman planning has “consistently acted as a blockage delaying the development of new facilities”.
In response, Mr Kirby said that opposition to facilities was likely to increase as residents and campaigners became more “vociferous and mobilised” in response to waste company's planning applications centred on the use of EfW incineration.
He said that this would lead to a move away from the technology: “[They] will have to take things back to the drawing board and then they have to come back with more practicable and suitable ways of dealing with the waste.”
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