News archive - Week ending 15th February 2008

£50m Combined Heat and Power Plant

A waste-to-energy plant that could serve 10,000 homes is proposed for the Upperton industrial estate in Peterhead. The plant would use commercial and domestic waste which cannot be recycled. Buchan CHP (Combined Heat and Power) intends that the plant will divert substantial amounts of waste from landfill. The Company said the project would create 25 jobs at the plant and up to a further 150 indirectly as the combined heat and power plant attracted new technology companies to the area.

A public exhibition of the plans is being held to allow members of the public to find out more about the proposals. Following this the plans will be refined before being lodged with Aberdeenshire Council.

30% of Municipal Waste Recycled

The latest quarterly figures from SEPA show that Scotland has broken through the 30% recycling barrier for its municipal waste. In the 12 months to September 2007 Scottish local authorities averaged a 30.5% recycling rate. Of Scotland's 3.4 million tonnes of municipal waste, 2.3 million was sent to landfill, with 70,092 tonnes incinerated.

Clackmannanshire continued its successful record, with a 42.8% recycling rate for the year. Along with Clackmannanshire, Scotland's top 10 local authorities for recycling municipal waste included Moray, South Ayrshire, East Ayrshire, Stirling, South Lanarkshire, West Lothian, Perth & Kinross, Fife and Falkirk.

Scottish Cabinet Secretary for the Environment, Richard Lochhead, said the achievement supported his administration's new long-term aim of reaching a 70% recycling rate by 2025. The next target for municipal waste recycling is a 40% goal by 2010, while landfill rates must fall from the current 67% to 56% by 2010.

Plans for Renewable Energy "SuperGrid"

The First Minister has set out the case for an energy supergrid to maximise the country's renewables potential and stressed that the Scottish Government is keen to work with its north European neighbours on the project.

He spoke after meeting the Irish Company Airtricity while on a visit to Dublin. Airtricity was the original proposer of plans to develop a European offshore supergrid. Scotland and Ireland commissioned a pre-scoping study last year to identify the requirements of a full feasibility study to generate energy from offshore renewables. An application to the European Commission's territorial cooperation cross border programme is being prepared to support the detailed feasibility study and it is hoped the study can begin later this year.

A separate North Sea Energy Grid (NSEG) study is exploring potential links between the north and east coasts of Scotland, and the coast of northern mainland Europe.