Neil Grundon, Chairman of Grundon, explains why Energy-from-Waste facilities have an important role to play as the UK’s energy security comes under the spotlight.
The war in the Middle East has reminded (and worried) us about many things. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz led to soaring wholesale oil and gas prices, talk of energy shortages and fuel rationing, all against a background of human tragedy, anger and defiance from all sides.
For me, one of the lessons to be learned is how the UK’s energy security has been caught napping.
For all the rhetoric about returning to the ‘glory days’ of North Sea oil (more of which later), we have to recognise that energy production has changed. Gas, wind and solar are just some of the component parts of the future energy jigsaw puzzle, and Energy-from-Waste (EfW) plants should be deserving of a place at that table.
Indeed, I firmly believe that EfW facilities should be much further up the priority list when the government is considering its energy security planning.
Our Lakeside facility produces enough electricity to power a town the size of Slough and, while EfW plants can never expect to keep the lights on throughout the UK, a regional network of baseload EfW power plants would complement alternative energy sources and help boost self-sufficiency.
I know I’m preaching to the converted, but we literally make energy out of waste – it’s a proven technology that does what it says on the tin.
Let’s not forget, too, that when it comes to energy security, EfW operations stand head and shoulders above some of the clean energy alternatives. We don’t rely on the wind to blow or the sun to shine – remember the dark days of Covid when many people in ‘non-essential jobs’ were working from home – we kept the lights on in all senses.
Our Lakeside EfW not only continued to operate at full production, but it also played a vital role as a designated waste disposal facility for NHS hospitals during the pandemic. A double success story, you may say.
I think one of the reasons that EfW facilities are not taken so seriously as an energy provider is perhaps because we have tended to focus on the sustainability benefits, such as zero waste to landfill.
Of course, that is important, no one wants to revert to putting waste into landfill, and we believe it is incumbent on us to offer our customers the best solutions for waste which cannot be recycled, reprocessed or reused.
Demonstrating to a customer how much CO2 has been saved and how much power has been generated by sending their waste to EfW is really important in helping them reach their carbon-related targets.
But perhaps, by banging the sustainability drum for so long, we have inadvertently diverted thinking away from EfW operations being seen as a valid source of power – and that’s a really important point. We need to be taken more seriously as energy providers because now more than ever, the UK’s energy security is paramount.
Plenty of politicians and commentators from all sides are getting hot under the collar, with opposition parties talking of scrapping net zero targets, cutting renewable energy subsidies, restarting drilling for North Sea oil or even re-opening coal mines.
While I have nothing against using our own oil, gas and coal if it gives us an advantage in competing on the world energy markets.
The reality, however, is that North Sea oil production is declining due to depleting stocks, and respected analysts say even if the UK maximised North Sea oil and gas and used all revenues from the sector to subsidise lower energy bills, the impact on UK energy prices would be limited.
And, I have to say I would be concerned about the risk of those oil platforms becoming a target for bad actors determined to wreak havoc with energy supplies.
If we truly want energy security, then we have to embrace the ‘clean-energy future’ of which Energy Secretary Ed Miliband speaks so enthusiastically. There is no one simple solution; instead, it must be a variety of technologies which come together to complement each other.
At Grundon, we are already doing exactly that. We have the green light to build our first solar farm, we harvest landfill gases to make us energy self-sufficient at a number of our operations, and we run 100% of our business on renewable energy from the National Grid.
Our EfW facility is effectively our flagship energy provider. It generates electricity for our operations and our vehicles, so let’s see it for what it really is: a power station on our doorstep.
