My Sympathies go out to Scotland.

What a mess.....


Scottish Water was in trouble with its sewage treatment plant at Daldowie outside Glasgow. Here, a plant costing £65 million had been installed to turn 50,000 tons of sewage sludge each year - nearly half of Scotland's entire sewage residue - into pellets.

For four years, this had 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. But it was then 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 at the end of the year, Scottish Power would no longer be allowed to use the pellets to make electricity.

This set Scottish Water a huge problem. Under other EU 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 was to burn it at great expense in incinerators - but only so long as these served no useful purpose, such as generating electricity. And the incinerators did not yet exist.

What about the courts, you may ask? What about them?

As we recounted at the time, Scottish Power had sought judicial review of Sepa's ruling, citing cases in the European Court of Justice that seemed to justify its claim that where a material can be used as fuel, it is not waste.

The judgment had been expected in September, but in fact it was only last Wednesday that the judge, Lord Reed, finally came up with his ruling. He fully upheld Sepa's interpretation of EU law and, unless an appeal succeeds, this means that Scottish Water will be in serious trouble.

The only way it will be able to dispose of sewage will be to have it incinerated, at a cost of hundreds of millions of pounds. In other words, it is all right to burn it, but only in a way which produces nothing useful.

So... let's recap:

* 30,000 homes will have to buy their electricity from somewhere else
* to generate this extra power, more (non-renewable) coal will be needed
* incinerators will have to be purchased with taxpayers' money
* and while said incinerators are being purchased and installed (over the next two years or so), the sewage sludge will be stored... where? [my suggestion would be "in Brussels", but no one ever listens to me]
* no one is going to lose their job for this appalling example of environmental regulation gone mad
* and no one is going to be hanged, either. [more's the pity]

Somebody please remind me of the benefits of insane enviro-regulation. I must have missed that part of the memo.

The only good thing about this is that it's happening in neo-socialist Scotland, and not in Texas.

Commentary and source material are from a BLOG online...it has been edited by me to remove ....rude commnetary on other nations and to remove the graphic language.

[aleph_null1]

Which Blog, by the way, MagiK?

Somebody with power, who has sense, has to step up in their government and say, "Guys, stop being stupid: Burn the crap & make power."

Problems like this can (and maybe must) be solved by a single person who speaks up -- so long as s/he's important enough to be listened to.

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.

--------------------------------------------------------------

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.

Aleph I PM'd you the link...be warned of foul language and extreme views [img]smile.gif[/img]

[John D Harris]

Originally posted by Absynthe: Magik, your blogger seems to be a plagiarist.

And just exacttly how does that make anything the blogger wrote incorrect?

Plagerism is when you don't accredit the work of others and claim it as your own....I didn't see him do that. No where did he take credit for the source....However *I* might be liable to be called some kind of name since I didn't post proper credits for the material.


Edit: It might also be mentioned that I did say that I had edited the material too to remove certain TOS violations so that I could post it.


[ 12-29-2004, 02:23 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

Originally posted by John D Harris: quote: Originally posted by Absynthe: Magik, your blogger seems to be a plagiarist.

And just exacttly how does that make anything the blogger wrote incorrect? [/QUOTE]Why do you think it would?

Originally posted by MagiK: Plagerism is when you don't accredit the work of others and claim it as your own....I didn't see him do that. No where did he take credit for the source....However *I* might be liable to be called some kind of name since I didn't post proper credits for the material. Edit: It might also be mentioned that I did say that I had edited the material too to remove certain TOS violations so that I could post it.

Gee Magik, you're always liable to be called some kind of name... [img]smile.gif[/img]
If anyone uses someone elses material and does not credit the source, it's plagiarism. Publishing anything under your own byline, such as in a blog, is a claim of authorship unless specifically noted otherwise.
If he did credit the sources in his blog then it's not plagiarism, and perhaps you edited that out also.
Actually, since you said up front that you had pulled the info from a blog, you avoided plagiarism, but if the blog author failed to credit the source or at least acknowledge that he didn't originate the material then he is a plagiarist.

The reason I posted the original article is that the blog segment you posted mixes information from one place with other figures without citing where they are from, or what context they are presented in.
I assumed that you, MagiK, had enough integrity not to pull a cut and paste of that type without noting the fact.

[Sir Degrader]

Magik, if you want to see a bloated disaster, look north for Pickering nucleur plant. The circumstances behind the case are assisine in the least. What the hell is use of this law, which takes away a communities right to power amd has a cost to the taxpayer? To protect the enviornment? I believe Magik made a better point of the reactions to this then I could.

[wellard]

While plagarism is an important issue the real POINT /ISSUE to this topic is the unflexible law. A by product of too many laws being made without proper filtration by the the common sense and bullshit machine

*hands magik a welcome to the green party membership form* [img]graemlins/heee.gif[/img]

wonders if Himalayen people burning Yak poo instead of chopping rare trees for fuel is evil? [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img]