New biomass facility opens in Yorkshire
For some time now local authorities and businesses in Yorkshire have expressed an interest in lowering their carbon footprint by switching from traditional oil, gas or coal heating systems to biomass.
Biomass includes material such as Willow and Eucalyptus. Burning it produces heat, and C02 is released, but it's the same amount of C02 as is absorbed by the tree in its lifetime, and so it's crucially a carbon neutral fuel.
The problem has been the lack of a reliable supply.
A local wood pellet processing facility has long been identified as the answer. But with no customers, investors refused to put money into building such a facility. On Thursday, though, England's biggest Biomass wood pellet factory will officially open in Pollington, near Selby.
It's been a common enough chicken and egg scenario, but Yorkshire Forward decided to break the deadlock and invest £4.5 million pounds into the project through C02sense and private firm Dalkia, making a total investment of £ 6 million. helps businesses and organisations in Yorkshire and Humber to prosper and grow in the new low carbon economy.
The beauty of the new facility is that most of the wood it processes into pellets will be diverted from local authority land fill sites, which would otherwise be buried. This means that not only will local authorities be able to cut the amount of waste, but will be able to take back the processed wood to use to heat their buildings. In most of the school buildings in Wakefield, for example, coal has been traditionally the fuel of choice. This fuel will now be switched to biomass, using processed wood waste from the residents of Wakefield.
And this could be just the beginning. There's planning permission to double the amount of wood pellets produced from 50,000 tonnes to 100,000 tonnes every year. A 52MW biomass power station is currently going through the planning process, a decision on which is expected this summer. And the nearby canal is to be used to transport the material, reducing the carbon footprint of transporting the wood to and from the site.
Hello, I’m Paul Hudson, weather presenter and climate correspondent for Ö÷²¥´óÐã Look North in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. I've been interested in the weather and climate for as long as I can remember, and worked as a forecaster with the Met Office for more than ten years locally and at the international unit before joining the Ö÷²¥´óÐã in October 2007. Here I divide my time between forecasting and reporting on stories about climate change and its implications for people's everyday lives.
Comments
or to comment.