Excerpt from:
Christopher Booker's notebook
(Filed: 01/08/2004)
Entire article is
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...ews/2004/08/01
Judge to rule if sewage is fuel
At Daldowie outside Glasgow, Scottish Water has a £65 million plant turning 50,000 tons of sewage sludge each year - nearly half of Scotland's entire sewage residue - into pellets. For four years this has been feeding Scottish Power's giant 2,400-megawatt power station at Longannet in Fife with a "carbon-neutral" equivalent of 42,000 tons of coal, enough to provide electricity for 30,000 homes. Now, by a decision which is the subject of a legal action awaiting judgment in the Scottish courts, this whole process is threatened with disaster.
Last winter the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) ruled that the sewage pellets were not "fuel", but "waste". When the EC Waste Incineration Directive (WID), 2000/76 comes into law next year, Scottish Power will no longer be allowed to use the pellets to make electricity.
This has set Scottish Water a huge problem. Under other EC laws it cannot dump sewage sludge at sea or in landfills. It is becoming all but impossible to use sewage sludge as fertiliser on farm land. On Sepa's interpretation of EC law, the only practical means of disposal is to burn it at great expense in incinerators - but only so long as these serve no useful purpose, such as generating electricity. And the incinerators do not yet exist.
Scottish Power has sought judicial review of Sepa's ruling, citing cases in the European Court of Justice that seem to justify its claim that where a material can be used as fuel, it is not waste. But if judgment in September goes against it, Scottish Water will have spent its £65 million in vain and be left with an insoluble problem.
Magik, your blogger seems to be a plagiarist.
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From the Scottish Water website:
Scottish Water Sludge Judgement Comment
22-December-2004
Today’s judgment has considerable implications for Scottish Water.
This judgment raises issues over the future management of sewage sludge in Scotland.
Almost half of all the sewage sludge in Scotland (around 54,000 tonnes) is recycled into pellets and used as a fuel at Longannet to generate electricity.
Atholl Duncan, Head of Corporate Affairs at Scottish Water, said: “If ScottishPower was no longer able to use this material as a fuel, other methods would have to be considered, such as building an incinerator and more re-cycling on the land.”
“We’ll now be studying the judgment in detail. A final decision may be a long way off.”
As the judge indicates, ScottishPower may wish to consider a number of other issues to be pursued at a second hearing. Following that, the matter may be appealed.
Scottish Water produces more than 110,000 tonnes of sewage sludge each year, and it has a duty under EU law to utilise beneficially the material wherever possible.
48% is converted to a fuel and used in electricity generation
27% is beneficially recycled to reclaim derelict land
23% is recycled to farmland as a fertiliser
2% is disposed of to landfill
Prior to 1998, sewage sludge was dumped at sea using the sludge boats “The Gardy Loo” and “The Garroch Head”.
Background Note
Sewage sludge should not be confused with raw sewage. Sewage sludge is a by-product of biological wastewater treatment.
It is the settled product of wastewater treatment and, under European Law, is classed as a non-hazardous waste material.
Sludge recycling is a highly regulated activity that has been extensively researched in terms of environmental protection and microbiological safety. A vast body of evidence generated from academia, industry, government and regulators exists to demonstrate that the activities pose little or no threat to environmental quality or public health.
All the sludge from Glasgow, approximately 54,000 tonnes, is transported to the Daldowie Sludge Treatment Centre near Uddingston where it undergoes a complex process in which it is dried and converted into pellets.
The pellets are sent to Longannet Power Station near Kincardine for co-combustion to generate electricity. The energy value of fuel generated by sludge is similar to that of brown coal.
This process is regulated by SEPA under a Pollution Prevention and Control Permit, which tightly controls emissions from this plant.
The Daldowie centre has been in operation since November 2002, under a PFI arrangement by SMW Ltd, a subsidiary of ScottishPower, although the centre did operate for six months prior to this while the operation was in its commissioning phase.
The issue of what to do with sewage sludge is a major issue for Scotland.
Due to improvements to wastewater treatment standards, in the next ten years there will be a 17 per cent increase in the amount of sewage sludge produced in Scotland.
The emphasis shifted to beneficial re-use of sludge in 1998 when disposal at sea was banned, in keeping with EU law and the waste hierarchy that promotes beneficial re-use over disposal.
The loss of the fuel burning recycling route would require Scottish Water to seek alternative outlets for the sludge. These include landfill or incineration. Using landfill is not a sustainable solution because there is insufficient capacity in Scotland.