Comments on PFoE Statement to the Environment and Transport Meeting

on 21.07.05

I received a copy of the above-mentioned statement when I attended the Meeting of the Environment and Transport Board on 21 July. Since the statement specifically invites comment from “third party experts”, I am taking this opportunity to provide my comments on the statement. My credentials for being considered “expert” in this field is that I currently serve as the Chairman of the Energy, Environment & Sustainability Group of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), as the Chairman of the Renewable Power Committee of the Power Industries Division of IMechE, as the Chairman of the Global Sustainability Working Group of IMechE, as a Distinguished Lecturer in the field of Renewable Energy & Sustainability for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and as an “Ambassador for Peterborough” in the field of energy, appointed by the GPIA. I have been acting as an independent advisor to the proposed GO/PREL since its inception in 2001, although I have no legal or financial connection with either GO or PREL.

I wish to commence my commentary by stating that I strongly share PFoE’s statement that climate change is the biggest threat facing mankind today. It is precisely for this reason that I have been prepared to advise GO/PREL free of charge for such a long time. As far as I am aware, it is the only project in the Greater Peterborough area which will “have a significant effect in reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases.” GO/PREL, PFoE and I would appear to have a shared interest in achieving these goals and for this reason alone I would have expected to see a much more supportive statement from Richard Olive and PFoE.

However, I take the strongest possible exception to PFoE’s continued use of the word “incinerator” in connection with the GO/PREL plant. This would appear to be gratuitously provocative language since the GO/PREL plant is categorically not an incinerator. As FoE should be well aware, we no longer build waste incineration plants in this country. As recently as 2001, I was given a copy of an FoE document entitled “Incineration – the Burning Issue” which featured an infra-red photograph of the Linwood incineration plant in Scotland. To my certain knowledge this plant ceased operation in the late 1980s and was demolished in the early 1990s and I am not aware of any currently operational waste incineration plants. In modern energy from waste (EfW) plants, waste material of various types is used as a fuel to generate heat and power. If one described an EfW plant (never mind the GO/PREL plant) as a waste incinerator, then by the same logic the Peterborough CCGT plant would have to be described as a gas incinerator and Drax power station in Yorkshire as a coal incinerator. Otherwise this would be intellectually dishonest.

There are four major thermal conversion technologies used in modern EfW plants. These are: combustion; gasification; pyrolysis; and anaerobic digestion. One of the unique attributes of the GO technology used in the proposed PREL plant, is that it combines the well-proven aspects of combustion with the greater conversion efficiency of gasification which will avoid virtually all undesirable emissions to atmosphere.

The PFoE statement claims that “we may only have 9 years left in which to take action”. This is at the very extreme (low) end of the range of scientific prediction and, if true, it is unlikely that we will be able to save the planet anyway. However, I certainly agree that the problem is acute and action is urgently required. It is astonishing, therefore, that PFoE is seriously proposing a public inquiry which will inevitably have the effect of seriously delaying the only project, of which I am aware, in Peterborough which can have a significant effect on global warming. With MSW continuing to increase at the rate of 3 per cent per annum in the UK, despite all of the efforts of the NGOs, and landfill running out, there is no alternative being proposed to address this problem. PFoE’s case is also not helped by the wildly exaggerated claim that “sea levels will eventually rise by approximately 120m”. Even if one were to take the combined effect of a reduction of global dimming together with an increase in global warming, the most extreme prediction of which I am aware is a sea level rise of 10-12 metres. If PFoE can be wrong by a factor of 10 in one of its statements, serious questions must be raised as to the accuracy of its other statements.

A further example of emotive language is in the statement regarding “possible health effects of toxic emissions from the plant”. This is a wonderfully vague catch-all expression which appears to be deliberately used to instil fear in people without specific knowledge of plants of this type. To be taken seriously, PFoE would have to much more clearly define what it means by “toxic emissions”. If, for example, it means dioxins, then the engineering profession nowadays fully understands deNovo synthesis and modern technologies, such as the GO process, preclude the formation of dioxins by design. If, on the other hand, PFoE means carbon dioxide emissions, then it should know that these are not toxic and in any case can be dealt with by capture and sequestration if so desired.

I find the attributing of “blame” quite extraordinary. Of course no one can ever be absolutely certain that no accident could ever occur in any energy plant. If we took this approach to any technological development whatsoever, then no progress would ever be made and nothing would ever be built. In the case of GO/PREL, all of the component parts of the plant are proven technology and have been used elsewhere in the world. It is true that in the PREL project some of these technologies are used together for the first time, and that the resulting plant is of a larger size than existing EfW plants; but this is an absolutely standard example of what we call applications engineering, a field in which I have been involved for over thirty years.

As Mr Olive rightly claims in the PFoE statement, time is not on our side. Adopting a “wait and see” approach is a luxury we simply cannot afford. It is necessary to take urgent action to combat climate change, and to save the planet on which we all depend; it is imperative that we stop regarding “waste” as a problem and start seeing it as an available resource which can reduce our dependence on unsustainable and increasingly expensive fossil fuels. Now is not the time for extensive debate, public inquiries and the like. I believe that it is a time to take action and put into practice the solution that is in our hands.

EurIng Ian M. Arbon, MSc, MBA, CEng, FIMechE, FASME, FEI, FInstR

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