Concerned about new Thermal Plant for Derryclure

DM_7

Offaly County Council (OCC) have granted Planning permission to Glanpower Ltd to build a €30m thermal treatment facility just outside tullamore

THE DEVELOPMENT WILL BE AN INDUSTRIAL FACILITY TO ACCOMMODATE AN ADVANCED PYROLYSIS SYSTEM FOR THE RECOVERY OF ENERGY FROM BIOMASS AND WASTE

http://www.offaly.ie/eplan/FileRefDetails.aspx?file_number=10307&LASiteID=0

I am concerned about this issue after reading about it in this weeks tribune and attending a meeting in killeigh today.

I would like to create awareness of the issue in case you would like to support the opposition to the plant.

This decision will be fought against by the local residents of Derryclure and environs. I myself live around 3.5, four Kilometres away.

For the record I am not involved with any group opposed to the plant but as I learn more that may change!

This is a long post so I will just state my concerns and provide more info later on.

- The plant will turn Derryclure into a superdump
- The Erection of 5 vent stacks, 4 over 30metres high will be a serious blot on the landscape
- Potential Health concerns
- Potential Release of gases into the environment
- The green credentials of the plant are questionable due to location
- The role of Offaly County Council in the planning process


So here goes:
The first concern I have is for the local rural environment. The plans will see the erection of four 30metre (100 feet) vent stacks. There will also be a 19 metre vent stack. Planning permission includes permission for a flare stack.

This will crate an eye sore, it is totally inappropriate for a rural location like Derryclure and is more at home in an industrial area.

The increased traffic would also be a concern for the local area.

Health concerns: The site is just 5Km from Tullamore. Less than 1km from Killeigh. I do not know enough about the process' involved in pyrolysis to figure out if there are health concerns or not. I can imagine the heating of biomass will create gases to be released into the atmosphere. I was told Glanpower Ltd made a point of mentioning the plant will be located more than 1km from a hospital, Goverment Building or school. If they mentioned this themselves there must be some concerns for the impact this type of plant could have on people within 1km.

The Role of Offaly County Council
I also have deep concerns about OCC's role in granting permission as the ethics behind this decision are questionable.
OCC gave Glanpower Ltd access rights to their site (adjacent to the dump) using the current Derryclure Dump road.
OCC recommended the site to the developers from a short list of four.
OCC stand to makeover €230,000 as part of the planning

Considering how helpful OCC were before and during the planning process it can be no surprise to see planning permission was granted.

This seems like another step in turning Derryclure into a super dump. Currently the Dump Takes 40,000 tonnes of waste per annum. Offaly county council tried and failed to increase this to 75,000. Tonnes. They still have plans to increase the waste to 100,000 tonnes. Add this potential 100,000 tonnes to the 75,000 tonnes at the conveniently placed adjacent site and Derryclure will be taking in 175,000 tonnes of rubbish every year!

This could see trucks from all across the country heading to Derryclure to dump the countries waste in Offaly.

Green Credentials
This development is supposed to be a green development. The end product is electricity to be sold back to the ESB and hot water.
Generating Electricity by heating Biomass is not the answer to green energy. It should not be taking the place of Wind or Wave electricity generation. Again this electricity plan would most likely involve erection of a pylon and substation, two more negative impacts on the rural environment.

The Hot water product is normally an advantage to a built up area as it can be piped to homes for heating or to industrial facilities. It will not be possible to make use of this water in Derryclure. I hear part of Glanpower Ltd's idea is to pipe this water to the hospital but nobody is aware of how this will work as it does not appear to be part of the planning application.
But as you can imagine such a plan would be costly, involving many miles of piping to be buried in the ground.

The green credentials of this process do not stack up for me. In fact to me it promotes non recycling as Pyrolysis relies on a feedstock rich in paper, kitchen waste, garden waste and plastics. If OCC properly promoted re-use, recycling and composting there would be little need for the plant as it wouldn't have much chance of being able to operate profitably.


One other positive promoted (apart from the alleged green credentials) in this is it will create jobs. However I feel the need for jobs in this short term is not a good reason for the building of plants like this and the potential/real hazards they will create.

Again I only learned about the plans it this week. I am open to correction on any of the points raised, but I wanted to raise the issue here to make a few more people aware of the plans.

taintabird

Generating Electricity by heating Biomass is not the answer to green energy.

Do you fully understand how biomass works ?

What would you suggest to do with all the methane gas which occurs naturally in the dump due to the breakdown of organic wast in the landfill release it into the atmosphere mabey ? firstly its a known greenhouse gas and secondly it would be a sinful waste of energy IMHO.

DM_7

taintabird wrote: »

Generating Electricity by heating Biomass is not the answer to green energy.

Do you fully understand how biomass works ?

What would you suggest to do with all the methane gas which occurs naturally in the dump due to the breakdown of organic wast in the landfill release it into the atmosphere mabey ? firstly its a known greenhouse gas and secondly it would be a sinful waste of energy IMHO.

Maybe I don't understand it fully.

I was speaking specifically on this plant. There is no intention to capture the methane form Derryclure. This is a separate facility placed adjacent to the Dump. The Dump will still be taking its own Rubbish and burying it under ground while the new Facility takes more rubbish.

The new plant will use pyrolysis to make char, oil and gas (which to glanpowers credit they intend to re-use in the treatment process the next lot of rubbish). It will not solve the problem of the lack of reduce, re-use and recycle in Ireland. The Plant will need people not to reduce, re-use or recycle to provide them with a product to heat and extract the Gas, Char and oil from.

Glanpower want to heat things like, Textiles, Food & Waste Packaging, Paper & Card, Mixed Plastics & Rubber, items that can be recycled (After the rubbish is sorted I don't know what they will do with the metals and hard particles removed that can't be treated).

Glanpower will not be growing hemp or Sugarcane to use in the plant.

The Location of this plant is still a significant problem, the hot water produced can't be used in the local area and the electricity would again be put to better use in a built up or industrial area.

taintabird

DM-ICE wrote: »

Maybe I don't understand it fully.

I was speaking specifically on this plant. There is no intention to capture the methane form Derryclure. This is a separate facility placed adjacent to the Dump. The Dump will still be taking its own Rubbish and burying it under ground while the new Facility takes more rubbish.

The new plant will use pyrolysis to make char, oil and gas (which to glanpowers credit they intend to re-use in the treatment process the next lot of rubbish). It will not solve the problem of the lack of reduce, re-use and recycle in Ireland. The Plant will need people not to reduce, re-use or recycle to provide them with a product to heat and extract the Gas, Char and oil from.

Glanpower want to heat things like, Textiles, Food & Waste Packaging, Paper & Card, Mixed Plastics & Rubber, items that can be recycled (After the rubbish is sorted I don't know what they will do with the metals and hard particles removed that can't be treated).

Glanpower will not be growing hemp or Sugarcane to use in the plant.

The Location of this plant is still a significant problem, the hot water produced can't be used in the local area and the electricity would again be put to better use in a built up or industrial area.

I don't have all the facts about this proposed plant I have seen similar plants on the continent that seem to work fine , they are highly regulated and monitored for all forms of pollution, I take on board your argument that the hot water produced cant be put to better use due to the location. However the electricity produced can be used anywhere once it is fed into the national grid. As for the extra traffic I relay don't see the problem Derryclure is isolated enough and there is a good infrastructure in place to handle it.I will have to find out more about glanpower like I said I don't have all the facts about there intended operation , but anything that boosts jobs locally cant be bad at this point in time, and just in case you think its ok for me its not on my doorstep I am only 6 miles as the crow flies from derryclure.

Quazzie

DM-ICE wrote: »

- The plant will turn Derryclure into a superdump

This is not strictly true is it? There will be an increased volume of waste coming into the area but Pyrolysis is recycling. It is taking the waste and getting energy back from it. Just because it isn't being recycled in the traditional sense of getting the materials out there, doesn't mean that it isn't recycling. Waste comes in, and electricity goes out. I don't know the particulars of the plant being proposed, but I'd imagine that anything that doesn't burn comes out as a raw material again and is reused. Pyrolysis is an incredibly efficient model that basically brings waste back to their raw materials through the process of heat.

DM-ICE wrote: »

- The Erection of 5 vent stacks, 4 over 30metres high will be a serious blot on the landscape

This might be so but they can also be viewed as landmarks. True not traditional land marks but the towers at Shannonbridge and Rhode for years stood out for miles and were incorporated into the skyline by everyone. In fact a lot of people said that driving into Rhode was "odd" when the stacks were felled.

DM-ICE wrote: »

- Potential Health concerns

Generally speaking Pyrolysis is a self contained system which emits very little in terms of toxic wastage. Your point about hospitals and schools would be standard for anything that has a vent stack as being proposed.

DM-ICE wrote: »

- Potential Release of gases into the environment

I'd be pretty confident that the stacks would be mostly for venting. There is a big clampdown recently by the EPA, which is the governing body that would have to be satisfied before this goes ahead regardless of planning permission.

DM-ICE wrote: »

- The green credentials of the plant are questionable due to location

As outline above, it is recycling. I do however concede that most campaigns like this do try to put a positive spin on it by calling it a "green initiative".

DM-ICE wrote: »

- The role of Offaly County Council in the planning process

They would be eager to get something like this passed obviously, but questioning their intentions based on the figure they might make is a bit sophomoric.

yoganmahew

I too live within a few KM of Derryclure.

Personally, I welcome the proposal both in terms of reducing current emissions from Derryclure and in generating energy from them. If the model is successful, there will be similar plants at the sites of other dumps with the result that there will be no need for particular sites to expand hugely.

I do have some doubts about the technological break-through aspect, but it does happen.

taintabird

yoganmahew wrote: »

I too live within a few KM of Derryclure.

Personally, I welcome the proposal both in terms of reducing current emissions from Derryclure and in generating energy from them. If the model is successful, there will be similar plants at the sites of other dumps with the result that there will be no need for particular sites to expand hugely.

I do have some doubts about the technological break-through aspect, but it does happen.

Anything that puts waste to some use rather than just piling it in land fill has got be good, there are a lot of environmental issues with land fill the gas emission being one but the toxic sludge that leaches out is a far worse one if that seeps into the ground water that's a serious problem .