Waste Gassification plant

[Albo]

Hi does anyone live near a gassification plant that burns household waste?

Do you have any problems with vermin, smells, noise, etc.

One going into the final stages of planning near here and would like to know what it is going to be like to live with.

 

[wasted years]

Hi does anyone live near a gassification plant that burns household waste?

Do you have any problems with vermin, smells, noise, etc.

One going into the final pages of planning near here and would like to know what it is going to be like to live with.

NIMBY alert,
NIMBY alert.

 

[Albo]

Not really objections have been open on and off for two years and I haven't objected.

A lot of people saying different things about these plants, just wanting a realistic view from a farming perspective.

 

[Exfarmer]

Should not be a big issue, the waste will be discharged in a hall which should have negative ventilation with filtration on the discharge

 

[___\0/___]

Should not be a big issue, the waste will be discharged in a hall which should have negative ventilation with filtration on the discharge

The plans don't have what type of ventilation that is to be used.

The lorries entering the plant will only have one door to go through (although multiple access points for several lorries). 38 lorries per day, would the ventilation system work with the doors open as much?

 

[thesilentone]

Check out EU waste handling regulations and Animal by Product regulation.

The reason the ventilation system is not shown, is because it will be a bespoke design not made yet.

The EA permit and planning will set the odour criteria, this will be part of the ventilation system design criteria.

Unfortunately there is not a one fits all, as the odour unit values differ depending on location

 

[Wastexprt]

Just from an anorak perspective. Gasifiers don't burn material as such, well not in the way an incinerator does. It does have a bit of a hit and miss history in the UK, mainly due to investor nervousness and some technological problems.

 

[___\0/___]

Just from an anorak perspective. Gasifiers don't burn material as such, well not in the way an incinerator does. It does have a bit of a hit and miss history in the UK, mainly due to investor nervousness and some technological problems.

I was hoping to visit one but the nearest plants were Dumfries and Newcastle both now closed/mothballed.

Lots of horror stories going about (some from lorry drivers admittedly). But I know that the bad stories get shouted the loudest and was wondering if anyone had any experience of them.

You probably know that the proximity principal has been dropped in Scotland so where ever they want to get the fuel for these plants they now can.

 

[Fowler VF]

less likely to be any major issue from the combustion/gasification process. Flue treatment will have to be in place. In line monitoring will be a requirement. Strict limits on emissions levels, all very measurable, all easily checked by inspection. Gasification probably a safer process than direct combustion as there will be more chances to clean the gases and then clean the exhaust post combustion.

Having said that, if the plant is exactly the same process as the one in Dumfries then it is to be hoped that they have sorted the technology a bit better. That one did burn out the combustion chambers and did have a brief history of emissions outside permitted levels, which is one of the many reasons its shut down.

Main issue for a neighbour will be the incoming rubbish. Issue is the same whatever process is used to deal with it, combust it, gasify it or whatever. Nobody send in fresh smelling rubbish! Needs airtight reception area, ideally should have air lock doors and entire rubbish reception area kept under negative air pressure. Very difficult to achieve this, it needs pretty big fans to keep the negative air pressure and the number of air changes per hour. On a tall building a small hole can have a strong venture effect from the wind and can still emit. Having pumped all that smelly air out of the building it then has to be treated, needs very clever air scrubbers and a very big, well designed biofilter to clean that type of air. If the plant has good negative air pressure and poor odour control on the fans the results can be worse than doing nothing. Smell emissions are more subjective, harder to measure, one persons very slight whiff is another persons absolute stench. There are tests but they are lengthy. Thus its more difficult for the regulating body to impose control on a plant. Equally for a plant operator its hard to prove that a complaint is not genuine and is malicious. It cuts both ways.

Plant needs contingency plans, what happens if gasifier shuts down, where does the rubbish go? Everything might be fine when its all running and the rubbish goes quickly into the plant, but what does if all get piled up and carry on festering until the plant is fixed? Can they clear the backlog quickly or is the plant sized to just take what comes in every day? Or worse still is it sized for the average annual tonneage, but has to stockpile it a bit over Christmas?

 

[___\0/___]

less likely to be any major issue from the combustion/gasification process. Flue treatment will have to be in place. In line monitoring will be a requirement. Strict limits on emissions levels, all very measurable, all easily checked by inspection. Gasification probably a safer process than direct combustion as there will be more chances to clean the gases and then clean the exhaust post combustion.

Having said that, if the plant is exactly the same process as the one in Dumfries then it is to be hoped that they have sorted the technology a bit better. That one did burn out the combustion chambers and did have a brief history of emissions outside permitted levels, which is one of the many reasons its shut down.

Main issue for a neighbour will be the incoming rubbish. Issue is the same whatever process is used to deal with it, combust it, gasify it or whatever. Nobody send in fresh smelling rubbish! Needs airtight reception area, ideally should have air lock doors and entire rubbish reception area kept under negative air pressure. Very difficult to achieve this, it needs pretty big fans to keep the negative air pressure and the number of air changes per hour. On a tall building a small hole can have a strong venture effect from the wind and can still emit. Having pumped all that smelly air out of the building it then has to be treated, needs very clever air scrubbers and a very big, well designed biofilter to clean that type of air. If the plant has good negative air pressure and poor odour control on the fans the results can be worse than doing nothing. Smell emissions are more subjective, harder to measure, one persons very slight whiff is another persons absolute stench. There are tests but they are lengthy. Thus its more difficult for the regulating body to impose control on a plant. Equally for a plant operator its hard to prove that a complaint is not genuine and is malicious. It cuts both ways.

Plant needs contingency plans, what happens if gasifier shuts down, where does the rubbish go? Everything might be fine when its all running and the rubbish goes quickly into the plant, but what does if all get piled up and carry on festering until the plant is fixed? Can they clear the backlog quickly or is the plant sized to just take what comes in every day? Or worse still is it sized for the average annual tonneage, but has to stockpile it a bit over Christmas?

Thanks Fowler

We are being told the technology has moved on quite a bit so will just have to believe them.

Kind of trusting the council to make sure everything is in place and SEPA to keep an eye on things once it is going

 

[Agri Design]

Just in case anyone is wanting to look it all over, I believe this will be the planning application that's being talked about.
Barr Killoch Energy Recovery Park

David

 

[renewablejohn]

Just a very lazy technology because they cant be bothered to sort and recycle. We have had one in Bolton for decades you would not really be aware it was there apart from the chimney but the whistle blowers have reported environmental horror stories. Gasification is a poor technology and I would rather have seen more sorting and the use of pyrolysis instead.

http://ukwin.org.uk/2009/05/05/bolton-incinerator-should-close-whistleblower/

 

[renewablejohn]

Thanks Fowler

We are being told the technology has moved on quite a bit so will just have to believe them.

Kind of trusting the council to make sure everything is in place and SEPA to keep an eye on things once it is going

Technology has moved on but its pyrolysis not the proposed gasification.

 

[woodworm]

They built a huge gasifier near Ipswich a year or two ago to take all of the waste from Suffolk. Their were obviously hundreds of letters of objection but it went through anyway. The locals were told it would be fired up in March so they were all waiting with their pens ready to write letters of complaint on March 2nd which they duly did (about 28 if i remember correctly), only to be told that it had actually been fired up 3 months before and they had not had one single complaint. Drive past it now and you would think it had been mothballed as there is absolutely nothing coming out of the stack.

 

[Steevo]

Just from an anorak perspective. Gasifiers don't burn material as such, well not in the way an incinerator does. It does have a bit of a hit and miss history in the UK, mainly due to investor nervousness and some technological problems.

What is the difference please?

 

[___\0/___]

They built a huge gasifier near Ipswich a year or two ago to take all of the waste from Suffolk. Their were obviously hundreds of letters of objection but it went through anyway. The locals were told it would be fired up in March so they were all waiting with their pens ready to write letters of complaint on March 2nd which they duly did (about 28 if i remember correctly), only to be told that it had actually been fired up 3 months before and they had not had one single complaint. Drive past it now and you would think it had been mothballed as there is absolutely nothing coming out of the stack.

Weird thing is they were actually way over with emissions during that period. Which I suppose is one of our worries the stuff you can't see or smell.

Six emission breaches in 2016 which is supposedly acceptable.

And the tomato green houses that they were probably never going to build, they are now not going to build.

 

[How much]

I dont think there was a gasifer plant in Newcastle, possibly one on teeside that was being run by air products of all people that has i believe closed down .

I think a gasifer plant heats the waste to high temp , rather than burn it , the material would start to chemically decompose as the heat increased and give off a gas the gas is burn to either produce , more heat to continue the process or used to burn in a generator to produce power .

 

[renewablejohn]

What is the difference please?

In laymans terms although a bit out of date.

http://www.wtert.co.uk/content/Defra report.pdf

Basically the more you can sort the municipal waste the more you can recycle and the less polluting the process. Unfortunately in UK this has fallen on deaf ears with most going in the bin instead of recycling at source. Also the lower the temperature of the process the less toxic the final pollution hence pyrolysis is better than gasification is better than incineration.

 

[Wastexprt]

What is the difference please?

Incineration needs oxygen to burn, pyrolysis excludes oxygen and basically melts stuff, gasification uses limited amounts of oxygen to produce a syngas.

http://www.r-e-a.net/upload/rea_gp_leaflet_june2013_final.pdf