Government to address health concerns around EfW

The governmentis setto address health and environmental concerns around energy-from-waste in guidance to be published this summer.

Defras director for climate, waste & atmosphere Colin Church told delegates at the Waste to Energy City Summit in London this morning (June 21) that the guidance would aim to stimulate the debate around building new facilities close to local communities.

The governments EfW guide, first mooted in Defras Waste Review in June 2011, had been due to be published last autumn, but the deadline was pushed back to this summer. The document is expected to identify the benefits of the different types of EfW technology in the market.

Dr Church also revealed that the guide would seek to address fears about the environmental and public health impacts of building EfW facilities near local communities, often seen as a significant source of opposition to new plants.

He said: We are also looking to stimulate the debate about energy from waste in local communities and we are looking to produce a guide to energy from waste looking at the health and environmental impact, that should be ready in the coming months.

And, Dr Church highlighted the governments belief that EfW technology is a key component of its renewable energy strategy, but warned that it must not detract from efforts to increase recycling.

He said: We published a statement of policy last June, the main message of that is to move towards a zero waste economy, but perhaps it isnt quite obvious how you get there yet. Energy recovery is clearly better than disposal but not as effective as other methods of recovery.

The right energy is important and energy from waste is an element of our renewable energy strategy because the energy is naturally occurring.

Localism

The session also featured Alan Whitehead MP, chair of the Associate Parliamentary Renewable and Sustainable Energy Group, who warned that the governments localism agenda could hinder future EfW infrastructure. According to Mr Whitehead, the system risked creating a gap between small scale facilities that would fall under the remit of local planning authorities and larger facilities that would be dealt with by national planning authorities.

He said: Looking between now and 2020 the obstacles are fairly substantial. Most new facilities will be larger than local but smaller than national and the way that the planning system is changing creates a gap between what is the local and what is the national.

It is significant that over the last three years there were 14 major applications for new energy from waste facilities put in and 14 of those were taken down despite the fact that they all had support from planning officers, so it is a significant hurdle. With new legislation coming in to do with localism it is harder to see how that will be addressed.

Anaerobic Digestion

The conference also heard that Defra is looking closely at support for the development of anaerobic digestion (AD) in the UK as it represented a double positive for waste management and energy production.

Dr Church highlighted the governments support for AD through WRAPs Anaerobic Digestion Loan Fund, which he said would continue to support projects and revealed that Defra is currently looking to make it easier for AD operators to supply methane to the national grid.

Anaerobic digestion is important to us because it is a good way of obtaining energy from food and other green wastes and it captures the nutrients from those wastes so it is a double positive for us. We have got some funding, administered by WRAP and we have been working with Ofgem to reduce the cost of sending biomethane to the national grid.

The conference was organised by Rethink Events.