A PUBLIC consultation was held by Egnedol on Thursday (Feb 18) in Milford Haven. The company promised to bring to the table an ambitious which it claimed would bring hundreds of millions of pounds into the Haven.

If Egnedol’s plans get the go ahead, the biomass plant at Blackbridge will be the biggest of its kind in the world. However, Egnedol has no track record of either building or running such a plant.

Mark Evans of Pembs TV conducted an exclusive interview with Egnedol’s director, Steve Whitehouse. The Herald pointed out that a far smaller plant in Newport is up and running and it has had numerous problems with health and safety breaches – even fire.

The Herald asked Mr Whitehouse, how Egnedol would succeed where others have failed.

Steve Whitehouse told us: “We’re using a very large South African company. They’re used to building biomass plants, and energy plants petro-chemical facilities around the world. It’s a large global company.

“We’re using them to provide us with a design, build, maintain, operate contract. So, they’ll be responsible for completing the details design of the plant, for building the plant, operating and maintaining it, using local people.

“They’ve just completed a large project in South Africa which we’ve checked the details of, so we’re quite confident. All we’re really doing is providing the facility, the cash and linking in with other technologies, so that they can come along and help us to operate this.

“So, it’s not our own staff actually, that’s going to be operating this facility. We’re going to be taking on local people who will be managed by a South African firm.”

The Herald also asked about the trees that are going to be used at the plant, which will be coming from plantations in Morocco and Greece. However, the website of the company says they’re still waiting for permission to plant in Greece and have no current plans to plant in Morocco.

When asked where the pellets will come from, Mr Whitehouse said: “We’ve got two options. They’re called option agreements – they’re legal agreements – with landowners in Greece and landowners in Morocco, so subject to getting permission and taking the project forward, we’ll be planting these plantations at that point.

“We’ll also be bringing in some wood from WDF, which 50% of our feed stock will come from that, which will be locally sourced, probably from Wales and other parts of the UK.”

When asked to explain about the emissions of the wood, as to whether or not they are chemically treated, Mr Whitehouse responded saying: “When we consume the wood, we consume it in a process called gasification, so the wood particles are heated up to a high temperature, which breaks down the molecules of the wood into smaller molecules, and we control that process so that we make methane, carbon monoxide, hydrogen – things like that.

“Then that gas we’ve made is called a syngas – it’s a synthetic gas. We clean that, go through several cleaning processes, because, we have to get it to a very clean state in order to inject it into normal gas engines – big German gas engines.

“So, it has to be very very clean before it goes into that gas engine. So if you can imagine the gas engine is then consuming a clean gas, the emission from that goes from the engine, goes through a catalytic converter and goes through an oxidation process – the same as it would on a car, and then it goes up a stack.

“So, the actual emission is just a normal emission that you’d get from consuming gas. Just carbon dioxide, things like that.”

A statement by Gareth Chubb, Director of The Friends of the Earth was put to Mr Whitehouse. Mr Chubb had said that the people of Pembrokeshire won’t like being “guinea pigs” for an unproven technology with uncertain risks to human health, and said: “We’ve never seen a successful venture of this nature in the UK.”

When asked how he felt about those comments, he replied: “The technology choice is still under close review. We’ve chosen what we think is the best gasification technology that is currently available – it’s been through a very detailed due diligence process, with one of the largest insurance companies in the UK called Marsh, in London.

“All of their technical experts – which are world experts, they’re not just local UK experts – have looked at the process. Studies have been done by large UK and European consultancies; they’re all happy with the technology, and that’s why we can attract the funding.

“Marsh, actually, are happy to underwrite its process, underwrite its operation, time and all of those sorts of issues, so we’ve gone through a very rigorous due diligence process with the technology.”

Mr Whitehouse concluded: “You know, the proof will be in the pudding really, once we get funding and build it. That’s where the proof will be.”

The Herald spoke to Mayor of Milford Haven, Cllr Stephen Jospeh regarding Egnedol’s plans, to see what his thoughts were. He said: “It’s very difficult, but anything that can help the economy is good.

“We’ve got to look on the positive side. Of course, we’ve got to make sure it’s safe. There’s lots of different impressions, and I wouldn’t for a minute pretend I know who has conducted these studies, but I hope it works because the benefits are huge.

“We need to keep an eye on the environment and if it is how they say it is. However, just because it hasn’t worked for other people, doesn’t mean it won’t work for them.”