NORTH Lorn residents have said a proposal for a biomass energy plant at a site near Benderloch is in the wrong place but they are not against the idea altogether.
At a meeting attended by around 50 members of the public in Benderloch last Thursday, Fergus Tickell, managing director of Northern Energy Developments, outlined the context of woodchip energy production in Scotland, the company’s plans for biomass plants in Argyll and why it was looking at Benderloch to site a plant.
‘The reason for this meeting is to find out what the issues are and what you might want us to address,’ he told the audience.
Mr Tickell, who worked several years ago on the consent for a biomass plant at Barcaldine while working for the owners of the Marine Resource Centre, explained that, strategically, Benderloch had a good supply of raw materials within a 30-mile radius without imposing on the resources for other biomass plants his company has consent for or plans for in Argyll.
The proposal is to use 60,000 tonnes of low grade timber – over-sized or under-sized logs, tree tops, brashed wood, thinnings or tree stumps – which would be turned into woodchip and burned to create 45GWh of electricity to power 10,000 homes, with around three per cent ash and residual heat as by-products.
The building itself would be 20 metres tall and a chimney around 24 metres high, with a wood chipper potentially on site and around eight lorry-loads of timber going in daily during working hours.
Explaining why his company was interested in the area near the Ennstone Thistle sand and gravel quarry at Culcharron Farm, Mr Tickell said: ‘This site has good road access; it will catch a lot of the timber lorries that would be coming from the north, without taking them through Benderloch.’
He said more timber would be coming out of the Argyll forests to supply biomass plants in the central belt in the future but building small plants in the area would reduce those lorry journeys.
Concerns raised from the public following the presentation included the amount of additional noise – on top of what was generated via the sand and gravel quarry - that would be generated by lorries going in, a wood chipper processing 60,000 tonnes of wood a year, the visual impact of the building from Ben Lora and the potential industrialisation of the area.
He rejected a claim that it was a ‘done deal’ saying they had carefully done their research and were clear about why Benderloch was a suitable location.
‘We haven’t done the planning application and are having discussions with the community and the community council to address issues to the satisfaction of the community and planners,’ he said.
Other issues raised and addressed included particle and CO2 emissions, use of the heating by-product, the number of jobs that would be created – between three and five directly and up to 30 in the forestry sector – plant efficiency, environmental impact and the type of connection to the National Grid.
Mr Tickell said that he would take away the concerns raised to think over and Ardchattan Community Council will be discussing the plant further at its next meeting.
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