Waste treatment company Clean Power Properties (CPP) has suffered two setbacks to proposed waste gasification and pyrolysis developments in Corby and Carmarthenshire in the past week.

A public inquiry will be held into revised plans for CPP’s advanced conversion technology (ACT) waste incineration plant in Corby after Greg Clark, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, called in the application last week (28 January).

Northamptonshire County Council approved plans to drop an anaerobic digestion (AD) element of CPP’s proposal and change the technology used from pyrolysis to gasification in September.

CPP had originally been given planning permission to build a pyrolysis and AD facility, before amending first the catchment area and then some of the plant’s conditions, including the technology used, last year. Under the changes, the plant would now mainly treat pre-prepared fuels that have been treated off-site and would not treat food waste due to the removal of the AD facility.

The facility’s development has been controversial, with local campaigners creating a petition to prevent its construction. To date, the petition has received over 1,180 signatures.

Cllr Rob McKellar, Conservative ward councillor for Weldon and Gretton and leader of the opposition on Corby Borough Council, said: “I am extremely pleased that the Secretary of State has seen fit to call in the council’s decision over this unwanted gasification plant.

“The original application had some major inconsistencies with the Northamptonshire Minerals and Waste Local Plan, particularly in that the Local Plan discourages the movement of waste across county borders yet this gasification plant would increase such movements.

“Corby and its surrounding villages must never be allowed to become a dumping ground for the rest of the UK and we will all campaign hard to see the right outcome of the Secretary of State’s inquiry.”

The proposals for the facility will now be heard by a Planning Inspector at a public inquiry. The inspector will then produce a report offering recommendations, with Clark making the final decision.

Carmarthenshire

The call-in for the Corby plans is to be followed by a report that is due to be delivered to the Planning Committee of Carmarthenshire County Council this Thursday (4 February), recommending the refusal of CPP’s planned energy recovery centre in the village of Cwmgwili.

Plans for the development include a solar farm, pyrolysis plant and an AD facility with an integrated education centre, much like the original design of the Corby plant. Pyrolysis, a process where waste is broken down by the application of heat to feedstock in the absence of oxygen to produce a synthetic gas, is primarily fuelled by a charcoal burner system.

CPP expects the pyrolysis facility to treat up to 128,000 tonnes of municipal solid waste and industrial and commercial waste. The AD plant is slated to treat around 67,000 tonnes of waste a year.

Consultations carried out by the committee received objections from a number of local community councils as well as local MP Jonathan Edwards. In total, 355 letters of objection were received from members of the public.

Shadow Secretary for Wales, Nia Griffith MP, is also calling for the proposal to be refused: “It is clear to me that this is a half-baked proposal that will be very detrimental to the area. With the Cross Hands Food Park only a stone’s throw away and strong objections in from big employers there, it is evident this waste incinerator could be a real deterrent to investment and lose us far more jobs than the nominal 34 it might create.”

‘No demonstrable need’ for such a facility

The report that will be discussed at the Planning Committee’s meeting on Thursday was written by the Head of Planning. It notes that the facility is unlikely to attain R1 recovery status, whereby waste incineration plants that can generate energy with high efficiency qualify as recovery operations, and that it is unlikely to be able to obtain sufficient feedstock to maintain minimum technical thresholds.

Indeed, the report concludes that, due to other developments in South West Wales the ‘best case’ is that 122,670 tonnes of residual commercial waste and 15,748 tonnes of food waste are available within the region – a total of 138,418 tonnes. CPP has stated that the facility could technically operate at a level of 120,000 tonnes per annum but the committee contends that at this level it may not be financially viable and it has been designed to operate at 195,000 tonnes per annum.

The committee’s report states: ‘The proposal is not considered to respect the waste hierarchy as waste material which is clearly capable of being recovered in a high efficiency energy recovery plant is being utilised for disposal. It is accepted that the method of disposal in this case is a better option than landfill but it is not the best option…

‘[The proposal] represents the wrong facility in the wrong place… In this case, there is no demonstrable need for the facility in this location, the facility does not respect the waste hierarchy and there are significant concerns about the impact of air emissions on human health and the environment. In such a circumstance the precautionary principle must be applied. The proposal therefore conflicts with the development plan.’

UPDATE: The council's Planning Committee voted to accept the report's recommendations to refuse planning permission at its Thursday 4 February meeting.

‘The future is in the circular economy’

In a blog post, the United Kingdom Without Incineration Network (UKWIN) has reacted to the news that Clark will review planning changes for the Corby facility by stating that companies should look away from gasification and pyrolysis.

The group contends that the processes are ‘troubled technologies’ that have ‘so far proven particularly unsuited to treating mixed waste’.

Shlomo Dowen, National Coordinator of UKWIN, said: "This is yet another setback for gasification technology in general and for Clean Power Properties in particular. Rather than stumbling from one ill-fated incineration technology to another we hope that Clean Power Properties uses this as an opportunity to exit the incineration business altogether and focus instead on sustainable waste management.

“The future is in the circular economy, so we need to increase recycling and recyclability rather than building yet more unneeded capacity for the ‘residual waste’ that we are working to eliminate.”