Engineers accuse government of throwing away waste-to-energy opportunity

The government's failure to promote waste-to-energy power plants has come under fire today, after a report from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMech) claimed that its failure to challenge the perception that such plants lead to high levels of air pollution is hampering adoption of the technology.

According to the report, entitled A Wasted Opportunity, waste-to-energy technologies can play a major role in ensuring UK targets for both renewable energy use and reduction in levels of waste being sent to landfill are met.

It claims that with official Defra figures showing the UK generates enough waste "to fill the Albert Hall every two hours", of which 60 per cent is sent to landfill, there is a huge untapped resource that is going unexploited.

However, it warns that a lack of understanding over both the waste-to-energy technologies that are now available and the air quality rules that govern them is affecting adoption and contributing to the widespread perception that they are incinerators.

The report claims that the government has fuelled this misconception through legislation that "has erroneously and dogmatically focused on energy from waste as waste treatment rather than as energy production, and has attempted to deal with an energy-from-waste plant as if it were an incinerator, rather than a power station".

It argues that waste-to-energy technologies such as combustion plants, gasification systems, pyrolysis plants and anaerobic digestion technologies are far cleaner than the large incineration plants that they are often perceived as and offer significant net reductions in carbon emissions and air pollution compared with fossil fuel-fired power plants.

Martin Chinn, member of IMech and chief engineer at Greater Manchester Waste Ltd, a waste management company that operates a waste-to-energy plant in Bolton, that the government should challenge opposition to waste-to-energy plants.

"Because of the historical reputation of incinerators, this technology has become politically sensitive and government has been reluctant to support it," he said. "But the fact is a huge resource is being lost by sending waste to landfill."

He added that there was a need to challenge the misconceptions dogging the sector if the government is serious about its plans for an expansion of waste-fuelled combined heat and power plants.

"We need to make it clear that this is not a substitute for recycling as we only take waste downstream of recycling facilities," he said. "And we also need to be clear that these plants face a lot of scrutiny and have to meet emission standards that are far tougher than those imposed on coal-fired power stations. "

He added that the company's Bolton plant had to measure emission levels every half hour and report on them to the Environment Agency, and used a series of filters to remove the vast majority of pollutants from the resultant gas stream.