prerequisites.


First the locational strategy needs to be immediately accessible, co-located with existing users of significant fossil sourced energy in order to reduce distributional losses and provide attractive supply security to those on interruptable tariffs. It was with this in mind that the West Midlands RDA / Advantage West Midlands sponsored the creation of a locational interrogation tool (now in the hands of WRAP). Second, the emissions profile of the newer “advanced” technologies needs to be understood and agreed with the Regulator. Thus large scale CHP incinerators are at risk because islands of 12 Mw of heat from 400,000 behemoths just don’t exist in sufficient abundance. Anaerobic digesters are CO² intensive - better than landfill but not as good as gasifiers - unless they are built on a very large scale, at points of large agricultural waste production, sited conveniently for gas to mains injection. Using AD to produce 16% by mass of input matter as gas and then fritter it to 10% via an internal combustion generator, and then to 8% by mass once it arrives at the plug on the wall, is not as efficient as gasifiers doing the same at levels of 60% as available energy at the point of demand next door to a 3 MwE user. Of course there are gasifiers and gasifiers - some at 350 degrees, others up to 2,000 degrees. At the top of the range they will produce hydrogen and storable CO², with as little as 7,000 tonnes of food released as 1 Mw /8500 MwH of energy, over 5 times that in an AD system. The mechanics of these numbers have yet to be underpinned by installations in the UK and scientific examination but there is sufficient international experience to be wary of backing single technology solutions.


As the recent study by Muhle, Balsam and Cheeseman demonstrates, the UK emits 5 times the level of CO² per tonne of MSW handled than Germany (175 kg vs 34 kg CO² equivalent) so the opportunity to fit horses to courses could put the UK ahead, even of Germany.


THE BROADER CANVAS Thus the solutions are in part in the canny hands of the investors but Government has a real role to play in terms of ……


i) accelerating the UK toward a single regime of carbon accounting standards (qv)


ii) ensuring that the unscientific system of half ROCs, double ROCs, FITs, CRCs and EUTs is rationalised around a peer-reviewed consistent, framework and integrated into the carbon credit certification system. The current bureaucratic dreamworld, designed to favour particular technology outcomes, is unsound, irrational and needs to find its way to the nearest dustbin in the interests of real progress.


iii) developing new energy capacity in locations where distributional infrastructure is strained already in terms of wires and pipes. OFGEM is committing to extension or expansion of centralised


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grids when judiciously placed 3-8Mw decentralised renewable energy plants could release line capacity far more cheaply.


iv) ensuring the planning profession is armed for public consultation and transparency by the National adoption of the AWM Planning Tool


v) utilising round tables with the water sector and regulator to footprint the operational risks- opportunities for insink masceration of biomass


vi) looking at the opportunities for altering price signals around carbon intensive foods in the form of differential CRC strategies (thereby encouraging the location of renewable food energy plants around meat and food processing plants perhaps?)


vii) encouraging community low food miles production of vegetables and fruit or community AD plants via the Local Economic Partnership strategies


viii) junking sell-by dates and adopting all the other WRAP suggestions


ix) realising that distinctions between renewable CO² and fossil CO² are an irrelevance and that what counts are conversion efficiencies over the whole system


Not a big ask is it? Or am I perhaps being a trifle optimistic - better eat that banana (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone ) before I trip over it.


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