IT HAS emerged through a Biofuelwatch Freedom of Information request that directors of Egnedol, the company which wants to build a large waste and gasification plant in Milford Haven, were behind a failed pilot gasification scheme built to test the same technology elsewhere in Wales.
The pilot gasification plant, built in Rhymney Valley, started operations after it was granted an Environmental Permit in October 2008. Evidence released by Natural Resources Wales shows that it has not been running at all since 2009 and was developed by a company called Hudol Thermal Ltd.
Their officers at the time were the three directors who now run Egnedol UK Ltd. Two of them are also directors of the consultancy firm Excal, which prepared Hudol Thermal’s permit application back in 2007, and which has helped prepare Egnedol’s planning documents.
Environmental campaigners from Pembrokeshire Friends of the Earth and Biofuelwatch had previously warned that Egnedol’s gasification technology is unproven and carries a high risk of failure.
If Egnedol’s plans get the go ahead, the biomass plant at Blackbridge will be the biggest of its kind in the world.
Almuth Ernsting from Biofuelwatch says: “We previously said that Egnedol has no experience at all with gasification technology.
“Now we know that the situation is even worse: their directors already have a failed gasification scheme using the same technology on their record. This evidence has been so well hidden that we only discovered it after detailed Companies House searches and a Freedom of Information request.”
Eleanor Clegg from Pembrokeshire Friends of the Earth added: “This new information must be a waking up call for the Welsh Assembly Government and for planners.
“Turning a big site in Milford Haven over to an experimental technology which has already failed in the hands of the same company directors would be irresponsible.”
