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February 2010
Forth Ports plan huge Leith Docks biomass plant

Forth Ports plan huge Leith Docks biomass plant

February 10 2010

Plans for a huge biomass energy plant at Leith Docks are to be but on public display from tomorrow at Ocean Terminal by Forth ports and Scottish & Southern Energy.

The £360m proposal would take advantage of the dock system to ship in up to a million tonnes of biomass material annually.

This would generate up to 200 megawatts of electricity, meeting most of Edinburgh’s energy needs.

Outline plans would see a 300ft flue; boiler house, steam turbine and storage area erected at Imperial Dock and will necessitate relocation of a planned public park.

These outline details will inform a public consultation in advance of an application to the Scottish Government for approval.

Forth Energy have plans for three other stations at Dundee, Rosyth and Grangemouth in a £1.7bn plan to generate up to 5,000MW of renewable energy.

11 Comments

#1 Posted by Roger Emmerson on 10 Feb 2010 at 17:22 PM

OK. So where's the biomass plant and the 300ft flue? Not the tower at the end of Ocean Terminal surely?

#2 Posted by John Glenday on 11 Feb 2010 at 10:00 AM

It'll be on Imperial Dock, marked in red.

#3 Posted by Rob on 11 Feb 2010 at 11:45 AM

What about the elephant in the room? This is proposed for an area that is described in the master plan as being a mix of 'prodominantly residential' and parkland. Even if they move the park in what sense is this compatable with these uses? I can't imagine anyone wanting to live next to a power station of this size. Does this mean that the master plan has been abandoned?

#4 Posted by Don't stop on 11 Feb 2010 at 12:24 PM

And the other elephant, it requires the demolition of a B listed grain elevator.

#5 Posted by Please stop on 11 Feb 2010 at 12:48 PM

Listed buildings/structures are now, apparently, seen as expendable. The supposed protection listing brings is very easily overridden. It would be interesting to have some figures from Historic Scotland as to how many have been demolished, mostly demolished with a partial facade left as a sop to 'history', thus rendering all historic interest void, or are in the pipeline for demolition.

#6 Posted by Auntie Nairn on 12 Feb 2010 at 14:22 PM

The 3rd elephant in the room? "take advantage of the dock system to ship in biomass" - from where? according the public meeting in Dundee - Scandanavia. What type of biomass? not the barely processed wood chips, oh no but wood fibre pellets. The 'green' credentails of biomass are already paper thin, but these schemes aim to push through power station development in wholly unsuitable locations by pulling 'green' wool over the eyes of the public.

#7 Posted by Iain on 16 Feb 2010 at 09:25 AM

#3 As a former resident of Leith I'd welcome another type of use in the area rather than just resi, retail, the jobby factory and the gas cookers down on Seafield Road.
#6 Please state some facts rather than your bias. For example, what's the comparison between natural gas (kgCO2/kWh) and the net emissions (life-cycle) from biomass transported by ship from Scandinavia?

#8 Posted by edingirl on 12 Nov 2010 at 12:03 PM

This is my neighbourhood and we already have horrible smells regularly wafting through the air from the sewage treatment plant - what sort of fumes will be coming our way from this biomass plant? What effect will this have on our health? What effect will this have on the value of our property? Not only will there be constant noise and light pollution but also the eyesore of a 300ft smoke stack. Surely there must be better places to site this plant - far away from residential areas - if it has to go ahead at all.