Attending: Cllr Brian Grocock (Chair) Nottingham City Councillor Nottingham Friends of the Earth. Nottingham Women s Environmental Network

Transcription

1 Eastcroft Energy from Waste Facility Community Liaison Group Notes Meeting: Tuesday 12 th January 2011 Attending: Cllr Brian Grocock (Chair) Nigel Lee Nottingham Friends of the Earth Nick Cooper Margret Vince Nottingham Women s Environmental Network Gerald White Kaye Brennan Nottingham Against Incineration & Landfill (NAIL) Richard Gutteridge The Meadows Partnership Trust Cllr Stan Heptinstall Nottinghamshire County Councillor and Broxtowe Borough Councillor Richard LeCorney Elaine Price Environment Agency Sharon Dron Environment Agency Mick Bottomley SRCL John Perryman SRCL Karl Starkey Mat Nicholson Bill Prescott Stephen Othen Fitchner (consultant to ) Kevin Whitmore (Secretariat) PPS Group Apologies: Andrew Estrop EnviroEnergy Mike Snell Cllr Katrina Bull Cllr Saghir Akhtar Absent: Jerome Baddley Nottingham Energy Partnerships Cllr Ian MacLennan Andy Vaughan Nottingham City Council Officer Mike Senior Nottingham City Council Officer Action points are noted in bold Item Actions 1. INTRODUCTIONS BG welcomed everybody to the meeting and thanked them for their attendance. He then invited each member of the Group to introduce themselves. All those in attendance introduced themselves. 2. APOLOGIES/SUBSTITUTES As above. 1

2 3. REVIEW OF MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING AND ACTIONS BG invited the Group to go through the minutes of the September meeting and asked whether members had any comments about the information contained in them. The Group agreed that the minutes were an accurate account of the September meeting. An update was given from and BG regarding the actions from the September meeting, including: A protocol has been agreed between the Environment Agency (EA) and the Environmental Services Association (ESA) regarding the sampling of the IBA produced and the assessment of the results. As a result of this, the sampling of IBA at Eastcroft has been increased. will provide the Group with a full update regarding the protocol and its implications at the next meeting. John Robinson was invited to join the CLG but declined the invitation. has also approached the relevant portfolio holders at Broxtowe BC, Gedling BC and Rushcliffe BC. Only Cllr Stan Heptinstall of Broxtowe BC has accepted the invitation. BG has again approached the Nottingham City Council members who represent Dales ward about joining the Group. He will continue to ask them to send a representative to the meeting. has approached SRCL to join the Group and they have agreed to send a representative. EP agreed to send a copy of the agreed sampling protocol to NL for information. KS agreed to update the Group on the results of the increased sampling of IBA in due course. EP KS 4. UPDATE ON NEW CLG MEMBERS BG asked the new members of the Group if they would like to introduce themselves and add any further detail to what was said at the opening of the meeting. SH introduced himself, saying that he had been invited by to join the CLG. He is a councillor on both Broxtowe BC and Nottinghamshire County Council and is responsible for waste management within Broxtowe. RLC introduced himself saying that he had been approached by MV to research and nominate any groups within Sneinton who may wish to join the Group. However, he was unable to find any so he has decided to join the CLG himself as an interested local resident. MB introduced himself and his colleague AP saying that they were attending on behalf of SRCL at the invitation of Alan Jones. They are happy to join the Group as permanent members. BG welcomed all of the new members to the CLG. There were no questions or comments from the Group. 2

3 5. OPERATIONAL UPDATE KS introduced himself and outlined his experience of operating a Combined Heat & Power Plant in Derby prior to his appointment at Eastcroft. He then gave a presentation to the Group outlining the facility s operational performance throughout 2010, a copy of which is attached to these minutes. There were no questions or comments from the Group. 6. EASTCROFT FACILITY UPDATE Both BP and MN gave a presentation regarding the potential future expansion of Eastcroft, including the 3 rd line expansion, proposed expansion to the Tipping Hall, and an application to vary the Environmental Permit for lines 1 and 2. A copy of the presentation is attached to these minutes. Group member s comments / questions on the presentation included: From within what radius would waste coming to Eastcroft be accepted from? Is there any opportunity to deliver waste to the site using the rail link? With recycling rates increasing, will there be competition for the waste that hopes will come to Eastcroft? Eastcroft s PPC requirements state that the majority of waste to be treated at the plant should be municipal. Doesn t this contradict any plans to accept more C&I waste? What will the gate fee be once the 3 rd line is complete? Companies such as Wastecycle are concerned that will undercut them once the 3 rd line is complete. Will the 3 rd line mean that Eastcroft increases water extraction from the River Trent? In response to the comments / questions from the Group, / SO explained that: There are around 1 million tonnes of waste within a 30 mile radius of Eastcroft, both municipal and commercial. This is more than enough for to source enough waste to feed to the facility. Gaining permission to use what is an already busy rail-link would be difficult to achieve. Whilst some waste is transported to treatment facilities using rail in areas of London and Manchester, this is only because the facilities have been specifically designed for this. Therefore, it is unlikely that would be able to deliver waste to the site using rail. Whilst local authorities have increased their recycling rates there is still a need for residual waste to be treated either by landfill or other treatment technologies. Furthermore, EU targets for reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill means that other treatment options such as EfW need to be found. There are also no real targets yet for reducing commercial and industrial waste being sent to landfill, but this waste will also need to be treated using other methods for the UK to meet its climate change obligations. As such, does not foresee a situation where waste disposal operators are competing against each other for smaller and smaller streams of waste. 3

4 The Permit for lines 1 & 2 allows for up to 3,200 tonnes of C&I waste whilst the Permit for line 3 does not yet include the final figure. is unable to give a gate fee at this stage as it will be based on the total cost of constructing the 3 rd line. However, it is unlikely that the facility would be competing with companies like Wastecycle as they perform a different aspect of waste management. Indeed, it may well be the case that Wastecycle sends its residual waste to Eastcroft once they have taken out the elements that they can recycle. Eastcoft requires a minimal amount of water for its process and does not extract any water directly from the River Trent. Therefore only a small increase is expected when the 3 rd line is built. Enviroenergy who receive the heat supplied by Eastcroft (to generate electricity and supply steam to the district heating system) use larger amounts of water to cool their steam turbine condenser. will ask a representative from Enviroenergy to attend the next meeting to explain the impact another steam turbine if built will have on the water usage. SO on behalf of then gave a presentation to the Group to explain the impact of the permit variation application to increase the capacities of lines 1 and 2 to 200,000tpa. A copy of the presentation is attached to these minutes. Group member s comments / questions on the presentation included: The recent refurbishment of Eastcroft was paid for by Nottingham City Council and Nottinghamshire County Council. This has increased the operational capacity of the plant by an extra 20% than was required. Will be giving the local authorities a rebate for them providing this extra capacity? What impact will the capacity increase have on operating times? If the expansion of the Tipping Hall will improve delivery turnaround times, will operating times be able to be reduced? Do you need planning consent for the expansion of lines 1 and 2? Would the ability for the plant to accept waste from Waste Transfer Stations (WTS) mean that waste could come from outside a 30 mile radius of the site? You cannot know where the waste has originally come from if it is arriving at Eastcroft from a WTS. What is the consultation period for the Permit application? How often does the facility have problems with emissions breaches? Is this likely to increase as a result of the capacity increase? Has the operating envelope changed as a result of the grate being able to treat waste of a lower calorific value? In response to the comments / questions from the Group, / SO / EP explained that: The brief for the refurbishment was to replace the existing grate, which was installed in the 1970s, with a like-for-like replacement from the same manufacturer. However, the improved reliability (and hence availability) of the grates, coupled with changes in waste calorific values, means that a similar specification of grate now allows for more waste to be processed. 4

5 The expansion will result in no changes to the hours of delivery of waste to Eastcroft. does not need planning consent for the expansion of lines 1 and 2. The capacity of the plant is only limited by the Environmental Permit. More information will be provided to the Group regarding the existing planning consent. As stated previously, the amount of waste available within a 30 mile radius of the site, combined with landfill tax increases should enable waste to be sourced from within that radius. The EA will place the application on its website for public comment prior to the draft permit being published for a minimum of 28 days. Once the draft Permit has been published, the public will also be able to comment on this for a further period of 20 days. Lines 1 and 2 have been compliant for 99.99% and 99.95% of the time respectively throughout don t expect the additional capacity to affect how the plant operates and want to ensure that any breaches are kept to a minimum. The operational envelope hasn t changed significantly as a result of the refurbishment. 7. ITEMS FOR DISCUSSION AT FUTURE MEETINGS BG asked the Group what subjects they would like to discuss at the next meeting. It was suggested that SRCL give a presentation to the group on their operations. will also give an update to the Group on the new protocol for IBA. MN informed the Group that were at the initial stage of conducting a feasibility study into the potential for installing a 4 th line at Eastcroft with a capacity of 100,000tpa. If this has progressed sufficiently by the next meeting, will also update the Group on this. 8. DATE OF NEXT MEETING The next meeting will take place on Tuesday 12 th April at 6.30pm. Details of the venue will be circulated in due course. 9. ANY OTHER BUSINESS EP requested the contact details for members of the Group so that she could inform them when the Permit application has been submitted by. KB asked that her colleague, Jon Beresford s details are also given to EP. The meeting closed at 8.15pm. 5